
CFass- 

Book 



COPYRIGtfr DEPOSIT 



Vo. li> 



25 Cts. 




Copyricht, 1SS5, 
Hauper a Brothers 



JvLY 24, 1885 



Siihscription Price 
per Year, 5'i Numtjern, ^15 



Enter«ii at the Poit-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter 



FISH AND MEN IN TIE MAfflE ISLANDS 



By W. H. bishop 

AUTHOR OF "old MEXICO AND HER LOST PROVINCES" FTC. 



f^mr^ "<r^; 



ILLUSTRATED 



Copyright, 1685, by Harper & Brothers 



Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most use/id^ after all 

Dr. Johnson 



NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

1885 



"Boote you may liold readily in your hand are the most uselul, after all" 

Dr. Johnson. 

HARPER'S HAND Y SERIES. 

Some of the most attractive of current literature is finding its 
way into tliese volumes, which you may buy for a quarter, hold 
easily in one hand, and slip into your pocket between the readings, 
— iV. Y. Sun. 

Convenient in size, the type is large and clear, and the paper ex- 
cellent. The series, which is well named, cannot fail to become 
popular. — Boston Gazette. 

In every respect handy for the traveller and for the summer vaca- 
tion. — Christian Intelligencer, N. Y. 

Literary quality and handy form will make these books the most 
popular ones for travellers and sojourners by the sea or in the 
country. — Boston Globe. 

Pleasant summer, reading in a very convenient form. — Observer, 
N. Y. 

This new serial is rapidly winning its way to popularity. Its 
size and shape are exactly suited to the pocket and the hand, and 
its price to the most modest purse. Its type is large enough to be 
perfectly legible. Most important of all, the selections made for 
the honor of appearing in this fastidious form are excellent. — 
N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

This new series, besides its high literary character, is presented in 
a particularly handsome and convenient form. The type is so 
large as not to tire the eye of the railroad traveller, and the size is 
convenient to hold and for the pocket. — Boston Transcript. 



Vohcmes of HARPER'S HANDY SERIES alreadi/ issued. 

KO CENTS 

1. That Terrible Man. A Novel. By W. E. Norris. , 25 

2. Society in London. By A Foreign Resident 25 

8. Mignon; or, Bootles's Baby. A Novel. By J. S. Winter. lU'd. 25 

4. Louisa. A Novel. By K. S. Macquoid. Vol. 1 25 

5. Louisa. A Novel. By K. S. Macquoid. Vol. II 25 

6. Home Letters. By the Late Earl of Beaconsfield. Illustrated. . 25 

7. How TO Play Whist. By "Five of Clubs" (R. A. Proctor). . . 25 

8. Mr. Butler's Ward. A Novel. By F. Mabel Robinson 25 

9. John Needham's Double. A Novel. By Joseph Hatton 25 

10. The Mahdi. By James Darmesteter. With Portraits 25 

IL The World of London. By Count Vasih 25 

12. The Waters of Hercules. A No'el 25 

13. She's All the World to Me. A Novel. By Hall Caine 25 

14. A Hard Knot. A Novel. By Charles Gibbon 23 

15. Fish and Men in the Maine Islands. By W. H. Bishop. II I'd. 25 

Otlwr vohcmes in preparation. 

455" Hakper & BuoTHBRS loiJl send any of the above tvorks by mail, postage pre- 
paid, to any part of the United Stales or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



-S^-^- 



«1 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



\ 



'f^mw. 




/' 



CONTENTS. 



PAQE 

I. FROM THE ARCnirELAGO OF CASCO BAY TO THE PE- 
NOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO 7 

II. A CRUISE WITH THE MACKEREL FLEET 75 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGK 

OFB^ DUTY, AT MONIIEGAN FvontispiCce 

PROPERTIES 9 

A FLAKE YARD 11 

CLEANING FISn 10 

HAKERS OFF HALF-WAY ROCK 19 

WILD-FOWL SHOOTING IN THE BREAKERS 2o 

A SNUB 27 

HULKS ON ORR's ISLAND 30 

A "sing" on MONIIEGAN ISLAND 36 

VESTIGES OF PROSPERITY 38 

VESTIGES OF PROSPERITY, BURNT COVE 39 

A DEER ISLAND FARM-HOUSE 41 

DOMESTIC DUTIES 43 

CABIN OF A JIGGER 47 

UNDERRUNNDsG THE TRAWL 51 

BRINGING HOME THE SHEEP 55 

A GOOD BITING DAY 59 

REPAIRING FISHING -NETS 63 

UNLOADING THE SMACK 69 

MT. DESERT, FROM BLUE HILL BAY 79 

MAP OF MT. DESERT AND NEIGHBORING COAST 83 

ENTRANCE TO SOMES SOUND . 80 

DOG MOUTJTAIN, SOMES SOUND 87 

HEAD OF SOMES SOUND 91 



6 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

THE OVENS, SALISBURY COVE 95 

CLIFFS AT SCHOONER HEAD, NEAR OTTER CREEK 9.9 

GREAT HEAD 103 

AMONG THE FLEET 107 

ARRIVAL OF THE DOCTOR Ill 

LIGHT-HOUSE, MONHEGAN 113 

MONHEGAN POST-OFFICE 114 

MACKEREL SCHOONER— DRESSING FISH FROM LAST CATCH . .115 

GLIMPSE OF A FORTUNE 117 

HARPOONING SWORD-FISH 119 

MIDNIGHT WATCH ON THE "HASCALL" 131 

BOATS AND STAKES 132 

INITIATION OF A NOVICE ON THE BANKS 123 

STOWING SEINES FROM LAST CATCH 126 

BRINGING ASHORE THE NETS 127 



I. 

FROM THE ARCHIPELAGO OF CASCO BAY TO THE 
PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 




PROPERTIES. 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS, 



MiDDLETON had his preconceived notion of the Maine 
islands. Wlien he looked at that interminably indented 
coast on the map, it gave him a fanciful impression as 
of the toothing of machinery, into which played the re- 
ciprocating wheel, as it were, of the tides and currents 
swinging off in a great arc towards the nortli of Europe. 

It was a coast of two hundred and eighteen miles, he 



10 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

knew, in a straight line, but something like two thou- 
sand five Imndrecl if yon followed it around by the shore. 
He felt that it was leaden in color, chilly, desolate — 
iron-bound, that was the word. He had wondered at 
and admired, especially for their attempted stay there 
in the winter, those early voyagers from the warm Eu- 
ropean countries — the Vei'razanos, Cabots, De Monts, 
Gosnolds, Weymouths, and his very old friend Captain 
John Smith — who had come long before the landing at 
Plymouth Eock, and most of them before Jamestown, 
Virginia, and he had w^ished they might have had a more 
comfortable fate. Still, he had an interest in out-of- 
doors of almost any kind — in the habits of fish, where 
they promised to be seen to advantage, and in those of 
men, as well, likely to differ a little from the every-day 
patterns to which one is accustomed. Such promise the 
remote-looking Maine islands might fairly be supposed 
to make, besides that of a refreshing temperature for the 
summer, at any rate. 

''I will go about with a preconceived notion no lon- 
ger," said Middleton ; and so he found himself presently, 
at midsummer, sojourning in the midst of them, not a 
little surprised at, but, on the wdiole, very well content 
w^ith what he saw. 

11. 

The first point at which his previous conceptions be- 
gan to be shaken was in a tall old red-shingled tower, 
like the tower of a windmill, on the heights at Portland, 
above the archipelago of Casco Bay. An elderly man 
watched there, in a store of bunting methodically dis- 
tributed in pigeon-holes, to signal the appearance on the 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT AROIIIPELAGO. n 

far-off liorizoii of vessels in which he took an interest. 
Wherever islands are gathered together in numbers 
greater tlian two or three, it appears that the supersti- 
tion must prevail that there are three hundred and 
sixty-five of them, and Middleton was only moderately 
stirred to find the usual one for every day in the year 
claimed for Casco Bay. 

But it was the glowing w\armth and exquisite hues of 
things at which he marvelled. The channels leading 
down among them were of the lovely opaque blue of 
lapis lazuli. Beyond this the islands drew together in 
their multitude like a single richly wooded country. 
Touches of white on them indicated the houses, patches 
of gray the weather-beaten wharves, at which, through 
the telescope, little figures could be seen landing and 
putting off. The deep water in the harbor in front was 
of a fine blue also, and the crags and bowlders, among 
the larch, spruce, and fir of the shores, of the pleasant 
gray tiiat painters love. 

'^ Why, it is the coloring of Bellagio or Sorrento," 
cried Middleton. " We have nothing to envy Como or 
the Mediterranean." 

lie found this trait even intensified as he went on up 
the coast. There were only some thin wreaths of mist 
here and there to give a touch of mystery to the atmos- 
phere, and soften tlie over-rugged outlines, like the great 
camel humps of Mount Desert, instead of the lowering 
gloom he had fancied. Inasmuch as it happened, too, 
that he had been chilled and dejected by unceasing fogs 
and rains among the vine-clad hills of France and Italy 
just before, he abandoned from this time his sympathy 
with the early explorers. Sailing in upon such lovely 

1^ 



12 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

vistas, they could have liacl little reason for disappoint- 
ment in the New World by reason of tlie memory of 
any scenes whatsoever which they might have left be- 
hind them. 

lie went down to Commercial Wharf, and took a lit- 
tle steamer — one of a number, w^ell careened over by 
the weight of their passengers, flying flags and playing 
squeaky music — that criss-crossed about the harbor, be- 
tween the forts, the yachts, the frigates (one French 
and one British) lying at anchor. They touched from 
island to island, in front of white summer hotels and 
bowling-alleys, by which excursionists in sailor suits 
were playing croquet. The government had a collec- 
tion of bulky red buoys ranged on Little Hog Island 
with an odd efl;ect; Little Chebeague had one of the 
most attractive of the white hotels; Great Chebeague, 
a white church ; Hope Island, a single poor house and 
barn, with a patch of cabbages near by, and a lonely 
dark pine grove behind. A collection of over-prosper- 
ous white buildings on a treeless small island near the 
town, with parallel rows of lattice-work all about for 
the curing of fish in the sun, was pointed out to him as 
t^he establishment of a ^'banker." It was not a finan- 
cial magnate, it appeared, but a person whose occupa- 
tion consisted of fishing in his schooner on the Grand 
Banks of Newfoundland, or possibly on the American 
" George's Banks," a hundred miles or so off Cape Cod. 
It was not at all romantic in its aspect, and Middleton 
made sure — as the case proved — that he should meet 
with these bankers under more favorable circumstances. 

He began to remark a quaint and vigorous play of 
imagination in the naming of the islands. He noted 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 13 

here, and continued to find on lils travels in plenty, 
such titles as the Ship, the Barge, the Whale-boat, the 
House, the Basket, the Junk of Pork, tlie Little Spoon 
and Big Spoon, the Ham, the Gooseberry, the Great 
Duck and Little Duck, and the Brown Cow. Then 
there was another numerous family of an eccentric sort, 
such as the Ilussey, the Orphan, the Brothers, the Sis- 
ters, the Old Man and the Old Woman. There were, 
in short, suggestions from every shape or trait of com- 
mon life to which a resemblance could be found by the 
liveliest fanc}'. 

At one of the landings an agitated man rushed down 
as the boat moved off, brushed aside a youngish matron, 
dangling her hotel door-key, with tag attachment, in her 
hand, and with the acoustic aid that is got by placing 
the hand at the side of the mouth, shouted to a passen- 
ger who had just got aboard, 

"And, George, a couple of pound of French yaller, 
while you're about it — French yaller!" 

But this kind of people, in the large pleasure-park 
the place seemed to be, with its close relations to a high 
state of civilization, did not so much attract liim. It 
seemed desirable to choose one of the remoter islands, 
which might contain something more original, as the 
type of its class, and so pass on. 

III. 

What selection so judicious as Orr's Island, one of 
the outermost of the group. A distinguished lady of 
the literary faculty had already set foot on it and made 
it famous. Orr's Island it accordingly was. lie was 



u 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 





A FLAKE YARD. 



rowed tliither, across a 
swift deep channel divid- 
ing it from Ilarpswell, in 
a kind of small boat uni- 
versally in use, sliarp at 
both ends and flat on 
the bottom, known as a 
"dory." No sooner had 
he landed than lie discov- 
ered Mrs. Stowe's " Pearl 
of Orr's Island " and 
"Moses" under the hats 
of some bashful, brown 
little children going ber- 
rying along the single 
lie saw the distant white spire of 



and central road. 

"Parson Sewell's" meeting-house, to which her char- 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 15 

acters had used to sail on Sundays, on Ilarpswell, seen 
above the tops of a couple of tlie most deliglitful oid 
liulks lying in a cove. And lively Sally Kittredgc, he 
figured, might have been the young woman at wliose 
house he' dined at noon — there being no hotels. She 
had been at a seminary on the main-land, and she wove 
wonderful mats for the floors out of no other material 
but common rags. Some of these were of naive, charm- 
ing design, like certain patterns of teacups. There were 
red and blue flowers and irregular leaves scattered 
over drab grounds. He even thought that household 
art companies niight be glad to know of them. These 
mats were a common domestic product, and he began 
to suspect that he had happened upon a true vein of 
artistic inspiration in this remote corner of x\merican 
territory. But it appeared that the naive and old-tapes- 
try-looking ones were the result of errors, and received 
but contemptuous treatment in consequence, as "too 
horrid for anything," while the ideal actually aspired 
to was of a \cry much grosser and more insipid char- 
acter. 

At the hither point of the island, which has a length 
of about three and a half miles, were a flourishins: store, 
fish -houses, and a wharf. The hill -side was set over 
with lattice -work "flakes," or tables for drying fish, 
henceforward a pretty constant spectacle. The ^faine 
islander has these about his house as a farmer elsewhere 
might have his rows of beehiv^es or milk-pans, or his 
vineyard. Middlcton had passed his life with but shad- 
owy ideas of how the plump, dripping, and animated 
fish of the ocean are converted into the arid product to 
be had at the corner grocery, and now it was with a be- 



10 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

coming sense of his opportunities that he observed the 
process. 

The freshly - captured victim was decapitated, split 
down the back, cleansed, and thrown into a pickle of 




CLEANING FIbJI. 



Cadiz salt, to lie from spring to autumn if it were large 
cod, or a week or ten days for most of the otlier varie- 
ties. It was drained a couple of days, and tliereupon 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT AHCIIIPELAGO. 17 

transported to the Hiikcs. It lay there, back upward 
first, tlieii the meat side upward, till the siui had dried 
out of it all its moisture, and it was no lon^'T a fish, 
but the mummy of a lish, endowed by salt and desicca- 
tion with something very like immortality. The sun 
must not be allowed to strike down too fiereel}^, to 
avoid which the flakes were made capable of bein;^ 
sloped at an angle. Sedulous attendants hovered near 
them for this service, to spread out the fish in the 
morning, gather them np into hillocks on the approach 
of fog or storm, and to cover them with gambrel-roof- 
shaped wooden boxes for their protection at night. 

"What fish have you there?" inquires Middleton, 
genially, of one of these attendants, who proves to be 
buyer and dealer as well. 

" Cod, haddock, and pollock mostly — and hake." 

"The rule, then, is indeed of universal acceptance," 
he begins, musingly, having, we may suppose, very little 
on his mind; "the fisherman, too, must make his hake 
while the sun shines." 

But he fancies that the man glares with stern repro- 
bation at him for this verbal levity, and so turns it off 
with complimenting the fish and inquiring prices. 

"They're good 'uns, and plenty on 'em," says the 
dealer, tossing a misplaced haddock down the flakes; 
" but they hain't wuth nothin' — 'bout a dollar a kental 
for hake. / can't get no more ; mebbe there's them 
that can. Yours was hake, was they V^ he concludes, 
with a bargainer's shrewd haJf-closing of the eyes. 

All the varieties of fish had their plainly distinctive 
marks and peculiar customs, and as Middleton came to 
know them better, he took the more friendly interest 



18 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

in tlieir fortunes. The hake is white, and slimy to the 
touch. lie must be taken in deep water — seventy fath- 
oms is not too much — and over a mud, not rock, bot- 
tom. Tlie pollock is known by his white stripes; the 
liaddock has dark stripes corresponding. lie prefers 
rather shoal water, but at a considerable distance from 
shore, and he is the "gamest" of all, making an ener- 
getic resistance to capture, both by force and subter- 
fuge. The haddock has two "devil marks," prints of 
a thumb and linger, traditionally said to have been left 
by the arcli-enemy of men — and, as it seems, fish also — 
in lifting the progenitor of the race out of the water. 
The haddock has the repute also of being the best 
"chowder" fish. He frequents shoal grounds, and re- 
mains on the coast all winter, while the hake makes off 
into deeper water, and the pollock, it is thought, to the 
southward. 

Large cod arc accounted the choicest fish for curing. 
They are taken at the best on the dangerous banks of 
George's. The meat there is whiter, owing to the clear 
sandy bottom ; the rockfish of inshore have a redder 
tinge, following the general law that fish approximate 
the color of the bottom over which they feed. 

It appeared that the man who went for pollock was 
said to have gone "pollocking," and he who went for 
haddock "haddocking," but had no distinct appellation 
from his branch of business; while the man who fished 
for hake, and also his boat, was a " haker." In other 
departments, in like manner, were "trawlers," "drag- 
gers," "' riggers," " seiners " (popularly called scc7iers), 
with the "bankers" before mentioned. 

In the month of August the hake was only to be 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCUIPELAGO. 21 

caught at night, being friglitcned off in tlie daytime by 
tlie unusual voracity of the dog-fisli. Middleton met 
tlie bakers returning at sunrise, wearied after the long 
niirht's v.idl which fell to their lot at this time, and 
saw their boats at twilight lying with a pensive effect 
off such places as Seguin and Half-way Rock. There 
were usually two men in them, or a man and a boy, and 
the mast was taken down. Tliey attended two lines 
each. Once he heard a baker's boy soundly berated 
because be had slumbered and slept instead of watch- 
ing, while the fish had eaten off not only his bait, but 
his lines also. 

IV. 

Everywhere was heard the most execrable character 
of the dog-fish. His looks certainly show nothing in 
his favor. This plague of the coast is perhaps two feet 
long, with a weigbt of three to five pounds, a rough, 
leathery skin, no scales, a long pointed snout, and mouth 
set underneath like a shark's, so that he must turn upon 
his back to bite. It is not simply that he chases the 
other species — for all the finny tribes have their ani- 
mosities and their victims — but he is all but omnipres- 
ent, his skin excoriates the hands if touched, he finds 
means to drive deep (drawing blood) a cruel thorn which 
is said to be poisonous, and he is absolutely good for 
nothing. Such, at least, is the contemporary estimate 
of him. 

"But those eccentric ancestors of ours," says Middle- 
ton — "it is not strange that they should have differed 
so from us in ideas of religion, government, political 
economy, and all the rest, when we find them with stom- 



22 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

acbs like this ;" and lie quotes, to incredulous ears, from 
an early voj^ager who sets down in his journal that he 
cured with sassafras a "surfeit" in one of his crew, 
brought on by " eating the bellies of dog-fish, a very 
delicious meat." 

The sandy bottom about the fish -house and wharf, 
wherever he went, was paved with the heads and waste 
portions of other fish, to be sluiced out by the tides; 
but the dead dog-fish lay there unmutilated. He had 
an ugly, foiled-desperado air in death ; and Middleton 
felt that he looked down upon an arrant bully and 
rascal, and pronounced a mental sic semper tyraiinis 
above kim. The water on those coasts was excessively 
cold, and it was said to be rare that even veteran fish- 
ermen knew hov\^ to swim. One day, in a cruise in a 
chartered jigger, well out to sea towards Mount Desert 
Rock, he would have jumped overboard for the refresh- 
ment of a hasty dip, however, but was deterred by the 
skipper. It was not now so mucli the temperature of 
the water nor the bugbear of sharks as the terror of 
the same dog-fish again. The skipper told a startling 
episode of two men who had gone down to Matinic 
Rock — a satellite of the island of Matinicus — in au- 
tumn for a popular diversion among the islanders of 
shooting wild fowl. Shortlj^ after they landed their 
dory went adrift. They saw it at a short distance 
off. 

" Stay," said one, laying down his gun ; " I will swim 
for it and bring it back." 

He had gone but twenty feet from shore when he 
was seen to struggle violently, and throw up his hands 
with an agonizing shriek. 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 25 

"My God!" lie cried, " the dog-lisli! the dog-fish! 
Shoot me at once, and don't let ine suffer this !" 

The fish devoured him piecemeal, so the story went, 
and his companion could only look on in helpless hor- 
ror at his fate. 

So impressed was Middleton with the recital that he 
even forgot to inquire the fate of the survivor, but left 
him in this situation of no small interest. lie-adjust- 
ing his shirt of blue fiannel, he sat down again with 
the more contentment to the business of hand-lining 
for deep-water fish. 



Most of his practice of this kind was subsequent to 
his stay at Orr's Island, but why not set down his 
impressions in one place as well as another? It was 
a sport of rare excitement, he thought, as a novice, 
who had been used to waiting for fish of insignificant 
size by the half- day, but by sufficient repetition it be- 
came as uninspiring as hauling up buckets of water 
out of a well. His line was perhaps one-quarter as 
thick as an ordinary clothes-line, and had a five-pound 
weight attached to it. There were two hooks, baited 
with bits of mackerel. Down the line went till the 
sinker touched bottom. Then you must haul up a 
fathom, and begin to saw it back and forth. This saw- 
ing had cut a deep notch at each man's station on the 
side of all the craft used in hand-line fishing. 

Hardly was the bait down when it was taken. Haul 
in with all speed to prevent the fish from working off 
the hook, or biting off the line with his sharp teeth ! 
If he jerks rudely, however, you must ease him a little. 



20 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

Haul in — liaul in, by liberal reaches! Twenty -eight 
fathoms is a long way down, and that is but the length 
of a single line, while there are often three lines or 
more knotted end to end. Middleton soon heard with- 
out envy of the George's men who use five lines thick- 
ness and nine-pound sinkers in lifting enormous hali- 
but from a depth of five hundred fathoms. 

The victim ceased his resistance, and presently ap- 
peared near the surface, swimming in large gyrations 
through the clear water, nearly belly upmost. If then 
he did not tear himself loose at the last moment, as the 
most delightfully big ones had something of a habit of 
doing (making no account of the damage to their per- 
sonal appearance), and dart off with a flap and flash 
of the fins, he was secured and taken aboard, into a 
large tub prepared for his reception. A gaff, too, was 
at hand against the provoking contingency of escape. 

This was the ordinary way of things, but the pollock 
would pursue a different course of conduct. Fierce 
and wily, no other made so much difiiculty about his 
capture. He tangled up the line ; he darted upward 
with greater celerity than the slack could be hauled in ; 
then suddenly plunged downward, giving the operator 
a " snub," which sometimes cut his hands to the bone. 
He left a considerable part of himself on the hook, 
with apparent equanimity. Without ''snubs," and even 
with mittens (which it was the custom to wear), the 
repeated sawing and lifting of the stout line, with its 
five-pound weight and ten-pound fish, blisters the hands 
of the novice severel}^, and counsels moderation to the 
most enthusiastic. 

Middleton was nearly as well pleased to sit by the 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 09 

tub of deposit and watch — witli proper sympatliy, of 
course — the strange sea-creatures it came to hold. They 
had, one and all, charming evanescent tints. Tliey liad, 
too, reminiscences of some stupid luiman expression. 
Their ungraceful mouths pouted, and dull eyes stared, 
in the semblance more of sorrow than anger finally, but 
decidedly more in anger than in sorrow to begin with. 
Each new arrival seemed the occasion of protest from 
those already domiciled there. Some one at last, puff- 
ing with the injured air of a stout lady impertinently 
elbowed in a crowd, would arouse to a vigorous flop, or 
even complete somersault, which said as plainly as words, 
" There are enough here already, and I — won't have 

The householder with whom Middleton briefly put 
up at Orr's Island as a boarder would have charged him 
at the rate of four dollars a week for the accommoda- 
tion. That the price might not seem extravagant, it 
would have included free rowing and sailing. In some 
respects it loas extravagant, however. lie derived an 
impression of an unhygienic style of diet among the 
islanders, which further experience did not altogether 
dissipate. The landlord went away with a hoe one 
evening, and was seen, a dark figure, afar on the mud 
flats of the cove in wliich lay the two ancient hulks, 
digging what he called "a mess o' clams." Whatever 
the regular and legal quantity constituting this stand- 
ard may be, lie returned with what he called "only half 
a mess." This, with heavy dough biscuits, tea without 
milk, three kinds of cake, stewed peaches and stewed 
prunes, constituted the bill of fare for the next morn- 
ing a breakfast. 



30 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



Middleton, falling naturally upon the topic of Mrs. 
Stowe's book, obtained some new light upon criticism 
of works of fiction. It did not appear that the popula- 
tion had been paid so acceptable a compliment as might 
be imagined. Thej were rather disposed to resent it as 




HULKS ON ORR S ISLAND. 



a wilful misrepresentation. They seemed to feel that the 
novel should be, if anything, a chronicle of events that 
had actually happened, and not a tissue of fabrications. 
^' Yis," said one interlocutor, sarcastically, " there's a 
good deal of 7iovil about that, and no mistake. There 
never was no such folks, and no such talkin' folks. 
There ain't no caves and no smugglers. My brother-'n- 
law had his farm 'longside o' Long's Cove for fifty 
year, and he never sor 'em. They couldn't get in, what's 
more, smugglers couldn't; there ain't water to float 'em. 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGK). 31 

There wji'n't never no siicli wreck lierc. The ship 
Hanover was lost some sueli way over by the nioutli of 
the Kennebec, maybe, and she had to go and piaster it 
onto Ori-'s Island. There ain't no sense in it. The 
cap'n's ^vife, she didn't die o' fright neither, 'cause I 
seen her not over a year 'n' a half ago." 

The young lady who made the inspired rag mats had 
read the book. She said she had read it because she 
lived in the place, but she must say — And although 
she did not say, it was plain to be seen that if she had 
said, the judgment would not have been favorable. A 
bluff old gentleman, on the other hand, a really vener- 
able and picturesque figure, who was said by popular 
report to be the Cap'n Pennell of the narrative, though 
lamenting that people should come from the AVest, and 
even from '^Canady," and give themselves unnecessary 
trouble to hunt for caverns that never existed, and cut 
the bark of his fruit trees for mementos, delivered an 
opinion in rebuttal that had the roundness and com- 
pleteness of an apothegm. 

"You don't want to inquire too clost inter a good 
story," he said ; " it's cert'in to spile it." 



VI. 

i 

Middleton took steamer for Rockland — an all-nio:ht's 
voyage on a tossing sea. lie met with no notable ad- 
venture there except the view of a couple of patent- 
medicine William Tells, who shot apples from each oth- 
er's heads with genuine rifles, only for the purpose of 
drawing a crowd to buy their wares. lie embarked 
again, under its half -circle of rude ttunc and timber 



32 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

limekilns, faintly smoking, like a row of sacked fort- 
resses of the date of the Merovingians, and was soon 
sailing among the more important islands of the archi- 
pelago of Penobscot Bay. He saw at Dix Island and 
North Haven the quarries of granite of which govern- 
ment custom-houses and post-offices are built, and at 
Yinalhaven more quarries, where an enormous obelisk 
for a soldiers' monument was beincr chiselled out. And 
so he came down to the outermost of the group, the Isle 
au Haut, pronounced locally Isle of Holt. 

These islands were larger and bolder, and repeated in 
charming blue knolls all around the horizon the distant 
Camden Mountains and Blue Hills themselves on the 
main, but had in shape the general character of those he 
had just left. They were cut into innumerable long 
coves in the direction of their greatest length, from 
north-east to south-west. 

"I have half a mind to invent a legend," said he, 
^' that when the manitou of coasts was getting up this 
topography, he drew his fingers through the mud, with 
the idea of a graphic imitation of the fringe on his hunt- 
ing jacket, wiggled them about a little, and let it stand." 

An occasional tide-mill, turned each way by ebb and 
flow, is found on these deep coves. The grist from 
them is said to be of a better quality than from the 
steam-mills, being less heated in the process. But the 
coves are much more turned to account as natural traps 
for fish. Weirs of sticks and brush, with a single en- 
trance left, are set across them, and the entrance is closed 
at high tide, imprisoning whatever has passed in. The 
bottom is almost bare at low water. Middleton heard 
of famous catches of mackerel, shad, and black - fish, 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 33 

which had been headed off and driven in by a cordon 
of boats, and stranded on the mud when tlic tide had 
gone out. One of his informants said he had thus 
made fifty dollars in a single day. 

The principal channel among the islands was gener- 
ally termed the Thoroughfare. And — whatever had 
happened to justify it — the prefix ''burnt" was very 
common. He came, on the Isle of Holt, to Burnt Thor- 
oughfare, and presently, on Deer Island, to Burnt Cove, 
and not far away was the small island of Burnt Coat. 
lie crossed by a charming untravelled road, so faintly 
traced as to be like the mere fading vision of a road, 
over the flank of a mountain, to the outer shore. On 
the mountain was a lake, giving ice of such clearness in 
the winter, according to the boast of a native, that you 
could see to read through twenty-two inches of it, not 
only as well as, but better than, without it. lie held 
that it had actual magnifying properties. 

There was at the Isle au Haut a rude timber assembly 
hall, with an excellent dancing floor, erected in a spruce 
grove by the sparsely scattered inhabitants for their 
social purposes. There were no horses, and when one 
of the few Isle au Ilaut cattle found itself by chance in 
company with horses on the main-land, its agitation was 
described as something remarkable. Sheep were kept ; 
the principal crops were turnips, hay, and wool. There 
was an enormous fish as the vane of the meeting-house. 
The minister liad just then suddenly gone insane. It 
did appear an uninteresting society, Middleton decided, 
in endeavoring to supply himself with a reason for this ; 
so he had himself set across in a cat-boat — a sail of six 
miles — to Green's Lauding, on Deer Island. 

2 



34 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

Great granite bowlders occupied all the most desira- 
ble building sites at Green's Landing, and the houses of 
the residents took what remained. Here were some 
small quarries in bankruptcy. Blocks of mortgaged 
granite, a great rusted pair of wheels, and a broken 
crane stood about with a melancholy air, which the 
signs of two rival amusement halls near together, 
"Green's Eureka" and "Eaton's Olympic," could not 
counterbalance. Miniature islands, with a cedar or two 
on each, lay on the skirts of the shore, out in the 
Thoroughfare, as they were apt to do almost every- 
where. In misty effects, or in the evening, they seemed 
like' some rakish craft at anchor there. There were 
other reefs wholly bare, the round dark bulk of which 
impressed one at night like clumsy marine creatures. 
You almost expected to hear them snore, and see them 
take an occasional roll over. 

It would not be fair, he found, to infer excessive 
hilariousness on the part of the residents from the two 
halls in so small a place. However it might have been 
in more prosperous times (from which descended tradi- 
tions of " calico parties," panoramas, and even an " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin" company, which brought along its own 
properties in its own sailing craft), they were rarely used 
now for anything more lively than religious meetings. 
The islanders were, in fact, of a decided seriousness. 
Though it happened that even their pastors — one for 
instance wore earrings, had been a fisherman, and was 
now a store-keeper, and postmaster as well — were fre- 
quently obliged to unite business with their sacred 
functions for support, the concerns of the small meet- 
ing-houses, Seventh-day Baptist, Close-communion Bap- 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 35 

tist, and Adventist, were the strongest pre-occupation of 
all. 

It was a seriousness that seemed to bear a certain ratio 
to the remoteness of the place from the world at large. 
On fur-away Monhegan, an island of one hundred and 
twenty-iive people, without a post-office or any regular 
connection with the main-land, the theological tendency 
seemed all -pervading. No dancing or other profane 
amusements, no Olympic or Eureka halls, tliere. The 
extreme of social gayety was known as a " Sing." This 
was the singing of Moody and Sankey's hymns by the 
women, with the aid of a cabinet organ, while the 
rough men stood about in the door-ways as spectators. 
Middleton heard there the loungers, seated on the bar- 
rels at the store of an evening, discuss " free grace" and 
the "higher life" with all the animation of a question 
of politics or the scandalous chronicles of a neighbor- 
hood. 

And yet there now took place on Deer Island an inci- 
dent of quite an opposite bearing. Middleton set it down 
to a sort of discouraged listlessness belonging to a place 
in the very un-American condition of not looking for- 
ward to becoming immediately the greatest or only 
something or other of its kind. Deer Isle as a town 
was one of the Maine towns which, instead of in- 
creasing, annually declined in population. It had now 
some hundreds less even than in ISGO. It formerly 
owned as many as three hundred sail of vessels; now it 
was much if it had a score. Nobody bubbled over with 
the story; it was a state of things not well worth talk- 
ing about, but, after a while, from some store -keeper, 
with plenty of leisure on his hands, leaning in his door- 



36 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 




A "sing" on monhegan island. 

way whittling a stick, or some veteran in the shadow of 
deserted wharf and fish-liouses falling to pieces of their 
own weight, the story came out. 

The profits of vessel fishing had declined year by 
year. The government first cut down the nominal 
rating of tonnage to English measure, and then took 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT AKCIIIPELAGO. 37 

off a bounty of four dollars a ton it bad been accus- 
tomed to pay by way of encouragement. Tbe old folks 
liad got througli going to sea, the young folks did not 
want to go; it became difficult to get crews, and so tlie 
vessels were sold out. 

Why did not the young folks want to go? The 
"pogy" business, the quarries, and the rise of lobster- 
ing, all held out more favorable inducements to remain 
ashore. Depression in time overtook these pursuits of 
the shore also. The "pogy " business was the catching 
of porgies and menhaden for their oil. Every resident 
along the shore had his press — not nnlike a cider-press 
in its general effect. But then, attracted by the prof- 
its of the trade, swift steamers were fitted out by 
E-hode Island capitalists to cruise with seines; numer- 
ous regular factories put up, to such purpose that the 
porgy was presently all but annihilated. This partic- 
ular year he came no more. The quarries were bank- 
rupt, as has been said ; but this was a purely local Deer 
Island matter, while the complaints about the fishing 
were universal. Lobstering, too, which had once paid 
a steady man four and five dollars a day, was reduced 
by competition to a matter of a dollar a day, and no 
more. 

But to the incident. The insane minister of the 
church at Isle of Ilaut was at present on this island, 
running at large, harmless enough, but full of pitiably 
wild projects, lie was heard preaching to himself late 
at night in the lonesome woods ; he was continually go- 
ing down to cool the fever of his iron-gray head, that 
yet bore traces of scholarly thought, by washing it, in 
the edge of the water. Then he would fancy that he 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 




VESTIGES OF PROSPERITY. 



must build a great hotel on Thur- 
low's Hill with tlie mortgaged gran- 
ite, and would hurrj^, hurrj. hurry, 
cruelly, all day long, without a mo- 
ment's intermission, from the shore 
to the upland, and back again. These 
performances could hardly be viewed 
,' ' ^' \\ with unmixed sympathy, and excited 
/ti^^e...-* ^1^^ laughter of the young folks. 
u^Ji;% On Sunday night he was allowed 
to hold a service in Green's Eureka 
Hall. His audience was made up 
chiefly of young fishermen, hands from the lobster fac- 
tory, and quarrymen, or ex-quarrymen, girls, in a kind 
of uniform of sailor hat and plaid shawl folded close 
around them, with some children, who took the cere- 
monies seriously. Their conduct, on the whole, was 
remarkably good. The disturbance was confined to 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT AKCIIIPELAGO. 39 



some niinecessaiy stalking 
in and out, completely from 
one end of the room to 
the other. The demented 
preacher affected indigna- 
tion at this, but was in real- 
ity well pleased at having 
an audience at all, and an 
opportunity to imitate, with 
a hundred vagaries, the cer- 
emonies with which he 
had once been so familiar. 
Outside stood Isaacson — a 




VESTIGES OF PROSPERITY, BURNT COVE. 



40 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

cheap- John, who had opened a stock of second-hand 
clothing for ladies and gentlemen in a disused fish- 
house on the wharf — and an itinerant doctor, who 
made the round of the islands twice a year, in his own 
cat-boat, to cure complaints, awaiting him since his last 
coming. These two exchanged anecdotes at the ex- 
pense of all religion, as well as this caricature of it, and 
seemed to amuse themselves vastly. 

yii. 

Deer Island, eleven miles long, is next in size to 
Mount Desert, which is fourteen. It is cut np into 
extraordinary shapes by its coves. There are penin- 
sulas almost gone, and others, over Oceanville wa}^, 
gone entirely, so that if you crossed to them at ebb 
tide, it was necessary to wait for the next in order 
to come back. There were bowlders in plenty at one 
end ; good farming land — with a faint reflection in the 
buildings upon it of the fashionable prosperity of its 
not very remote neighbor Mount Desert — at the other. 
The hamlet of Burnt Cove was fairly typical of its 
kind. It consisted of a score of white houses thinly 
scattered around an inlet, a chilly white meeting-house 
on a hill, with no wisp of shade near it, a few gray 
fish buildings along the water's edge, two wharves on 
one side of the inlet and one on the other, and three 
battered schooners lying at anchor. They were wait- 
ing for tlieir crews, gone ashore for the haying. One 
was a ''pink -stern" trading boat. This term, which 
was once probably " peak-stern," indicated a peculiar 
high-pooped build which made it the most picturesque 
of the various kinds of craft encountered. She was 



CASCO BAY TO THE TEXOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 41 




A DLEK ISLAND FARM-HOUSE. 



liinitesimal commerce 



fitting out with a miscel- 
laneous stock of goods, and 
cruised from island to isl- 
and, often stopping where 
there was but a single 
family or individual, and 
picked up the threads of an 
to be reached in no other way. 

There were some bits of unique ruin on the shore at 
Burnt Cove. A footway leaning against the sagging 
gable end of a fish-house, to which was affixed part of 
the beak of a ship, tottered to its fall. Debris of the 
kind peculiar to such a settlement — old lobster-traps, 
broken yawls and dories, spars, a cast-off '^ pogy "-press, 
unhooped tubs and barrels — had been piled upon an old 
wharf, till, what with this and its sapping by the tides, 
its back had broken, and it had gone down to lie among 
the black sea-weeds. Kear by, a dismounted brass gun, 



42 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

bronglit back by some adventurous person from a 
wreck at the Magdalen Islands, lay in the grass, while 
under the window of a cabin was a broken yawl, 
through the gaps in which grass and flowers had grown 
up with a charming effect. 

In the interior, from point to point, would be found 
weather-beaten school-houses, and by etich school-house 
a few graves. The inscription *' drowned" was fre- 
quent on the slabs, tantalizingly void of the further 
particulars. 

''It reminds one too much," said Middleton, "of the 
inquisitive person with the new acquaintance whose 
thumb was missing. 'Do tell me how it came about?' 
said the inquisitive person. 

" ' On one condition, that you shall ask no other ques- 
tions.' 

" ' Agreed.' 

'"Very well, it was bit off.' " 

The old-time well-sweep was common ; there were 
pasturing sheep among the bowlders; on the top of 
granite, apparently the most sterile, grew mosses, filled 
with a hardy small cranberry. Middleton accepted with 
a fine resio^nation — for their owners — the straitened cir- 
cumstances which compelled many nice old farm-houses 
to be left in the landscapes in their pleasing tones of 
wcatlier-beaten gray and long unrenovated Indian red. 

Within the houses the women yet drive the spinning- 
wheel, and a spinning match took place at one of the 
school -houses during his stay. It is the bold, large 
wool-wheel, at which the figure stands, in so much 
more striking a pose than sitting Gretchen at her flax- 
wheel. He entered more than once, under cover of the 



CASCO BAY TO TUE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 45 

convenient request for a glass of milk, to watch such 
a figure spinning by a kitchen door, into wliich fell an 
angular bar of sunlight, and through which were visible 
the blue hills and the sea. 

It 'was the islander who was both farmer and iisher- 
man, as a person uniting in himself the two most an- 
cient and honorable occupations, that aroused in Mid- 
dleton the principal interest. Such a one could not 
take the trips of two to three weeks with the seiners of 
the coast fleet ; still less could he go the long voyages 
of the bankers, to the bays of L'Escaut and Chaleurs, 
to Greenland, and even, as sometimes happens, to the 
coast of Iceland, for fresh halibut, where they join the 
fleets of Xorthern France, the ^N'etherlands, and Scan- 
dinavia. He must attend his lobster-traps; set weirs 
for herring, menhaden, alewives, and mackerel; keep 
drag-nets and trawls; perhaps, if favorably' located, 
make a specialty of supplying bait to the fleet, which, 
now that this must be fresh and kept iced, is often in 
great straits for it. Between times he runs out to sea 
for a day or two in his cat-boat, his " Hampton boat," or 
liis "jigger." The cat-boat, it appeared, was the better 
sailer, since the more canvas in a single sail the closer 
into the wind ; but the Hampton boat — a modified pink- 
stern, with shoulder-of-mutton sails on its small masts 
— was the "abler," that is to say, better qualified to 
stand the exigencies of all sorts of weather. The jig- 
ger, however, a small schooner of perhaps forty feet 
long by ten feet beam, with a considerable hold, and a 
caUin with four bunks, a table, and a rusty sheet-iron 
stove forward, seemed the most available for general 
purposes, whether for taking a haul of fish, " smacking" 



46 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

a load of lobsters, wood, or ice, or hawking a load of ap- 
ples at retail to ports where they were a rarity. 

A professional " dragger " carried nearly a mile of 
nets. TJiey were straight, and not very deep. The 
fish was meshed in thein by tlie gills. Thus by the 
regulation of the size of mesh only picked fish need be 
taken, while the great purse seines of the fleet take 
everything, destroy at every haul a value nearly equal 
to what is saved, and tend towards rapid extinction of 
the fish. Middleton was told that they have already 
reduced the average size. 

The trawl was another engine of formidable havoc, 
against which there was equal complaint. It is the 
method in use among the bankers, except on George's, 
wdiere the tide runs too swift for anything but lying to 
an anchor, and hand-lining over the side. The purse 
seine and the trawl are the two methods of taking fish 
par excellence ; the former for the mackerel, the latter 
for all tlie others of greater size. When Middleton saw 
a trawl, he found that it was a long cord with hundreds 
of baited hooks fixed at intervals upon it. It was sunk 
so as to rest on the bottom, buoyed at both ends, and 
left there. A trawler kept great numbers of these lines 
neatly coiled in tubs, and set them one after another. 
After a sufficient lapse of time, he went back to the 
first, and "underran " it, that is, drew up one end, passed 
it over his boat, taking off the fish, and baiting the hooks 
anew, and paid it out at the other side just as he had 
taken it in. The method pursued by the bankers was 
to carry twelve or fourteen dories, which were put out 
when the fishing ground was arrived at, with two men 
in each, provided with tubs of trawls at discretion. 



CASCO BAY TO THE TENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 49 

Tt was tlie sun-cured salt-fisli that was the favorite ar- 
ticle of diet in the islanders' honscliolds, while very little 
account was made of the fresh. The young people had 
some merry customs of their own with it. They repre- 
sented that if a certain particularly salt strip in the cen- 
tre, called the " dream line," were eaten before going to 
bed, the girl or the young man one was to marry would 
be indicated by appearing in a vision and handing a 
glass of water to appease the thirst. 

The island farmer appeared to have cei'tain advan- 
tages over him of the main-land in one way, while he was 
at a disadvantage in another. When the wind was to 
the eastward, the fog, generated out to sea where the 
Gulf Stream touches the polar current making down 
from Baffin Bay, was blown in thick upon him, while 
ten miles back from shore there was little trace of it. 
On the other hand, the "steam of the water," as he 
called it, melted the snow and mitigated the severity of 
his winters. 

His ground froze up about the first of December, 
and thawed out for cultivation about the first of May. 
There was no winter sowing. The principal crop, as in 
the State of Maine in general, was hay. The Deer Isl- 
and farmer thought it would be worth double all the 
others put together. Next in importance came potatoes 
and barley. He got from one hundred and fifty to two 
hundred bushels of potatoes and thirty to forty of bar- 
ley to the acre. He had corn and wheat as well ; but 
the sunshine to yellow his corn was often lacking, 
and though the yield of wheat was or could be made 
thirty-five to forty bushels an acre, with the most care- 
ful bolting it w^ould hardly make white flour, and was 



50 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

not as good as cheap Western. He put on his lands 
a top dressing of the refuse from the lobster factories, 
and also flats' mud, which he found excellent. 

Two of his routine operations were especially novel 
to our visitor. He owned little outlying islands, which 
he devoted either to hay or the pasturage of sheep. In 
mild seasons the sheep ran at large there the year 
round, as untamed as the wild goats of Robinson Cru- 
soe. At other times they must be brought off in the 
autumn, to be sheltered through the winter, and re- 
turned in the spring. These transfers, made in boats 
of moderate size across straits of half a mile, a mile, 
and even more in width, and the bringing of the hay 
in the same way, piled high upon a deck around the 
mast, instead of in the familiar fariri wain, had many 
odd and pleasing aspects. 

On "a good bitin' day" the farmer was apt to be off to 
sea in hot haste, leaving work on shore to the old men 
and boys, and even to the girls. One day Middleton 
saw a slender young woman swinging a scythe in a grass 
lot under the tuition of a Nestor leaning on a crutch, 
who rather severely scolded her for swinging it uphill, 
instead of following the slope of the ground. 

The remark was common tliat in these times a liv- 
ing could not be got from either the land or the water 
alone. As far as his land operations were concerned, 
the islander esteemed that he conducted them in the 
usual way. He had the modern improvements ; he 
attended the meetings of a farmers' club at Blue Hill, 
exhibited prize turnips at the county fair at Ellsworth, 
and would have promptly repudiated the idea of hav- 
ing any " manners and customs," different from those 



CASCO BAY TO THE rENOBSCOT ARCIIIPELAGO. 53 

of people in general, or which conld be a source of cu- 
riosity and entertainment to anybody. 



VIII. 

In the spring, the fancy of the lobster — who has 
passed the winter months out in the water— turns again 
to shore. He has found the deep water both tranquil 
and warm, while the shallower expanses near land have 
been troubled to the very bottom by the furious gales 
and chilled by the floating ice. Thirty fathoms make a 
very fair depth for his winter home, while in summer 
the trap in which he is captured will gather in goodly 
numbers in a depth of only five fathoms, or even less. 
A few lobsters burrow in the mud, and in a manner hi- 
bernate, but the ordinary aspect of those taken in winter 
shows that their habits then differ little from those at any 
other. The migratory impulse seizes all at about the 
same time. They come on in regular columns, the stron- 
ger in front, the weaker in the rear. Though there is 
liardly a more quarrelsome creature, whether at large or 
in captivity, than the lobster, they postpone, for the time 
being, the manifestation of their belligerent tempers. 

A straight line of sea-coast furnishes but a limited 
area of feeding-ground for the lobster, even should it 
contain the desirable kind of food. The bottom in such 
a coast gi-adually shelves for a moderate distance, but 
presently drops oQ into deep soundings. An indented 
coast is much more advantageous. So great a stretch of 
shoals and shallows as exists along the north-east of 
Kew England, from Yarmouth in Maine to Cape Sable, 
the lower point of Xova Scotia, will hardly be found 



54 FISH AND MEN" IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

elsewhere. It presents an endless series of promonto- 
ries which have barely escaped being islands, and islands 
which have barely escaped being promontories. With 
the innumerable resulting ba^^s, coves, sounds, estuaries, 
and straits, liardly does the water deepen from one shore 
than it shoals agnin at another. As a consequence, 
the Maine coast has become the best lobster- fishing 
ground in the world, and the industry of taking and in- 
troducing the lobster into commerce has reached great 
proportions. 

The awkward crustacean, when snared, is either sent 
fresh to market in smacks containing wells, or is boiled 
and sent in open crates, or is put up in hermetically 
sealed carfs. The first two processes continue all the 
year round, but a law of the State of Maine prohib- 
its the canning of lobsters except between March 1st 
and August 1st. There are various theories about 
their unsuitableness for this purpose after August 1st. 
It does not seem quite clear whether the law is for the 
protection of the purchaser, to whom the flesh is said to 
be at a certain time poisonous, or of the lobster, to pre- 
vent his rapid destruction by too indefatigable pursuit. 



IX. 

The typical lobsterman lives at the bottom of a re- 
mote and charming cove. The shores rise around him 
in bold, gray crags, but he has a fine strip of yellow 
sand on which to beach his boat. He is a fisherman in 
other branches and farmer as well, for lobstering need 
not take the whole of one's time. His buildings, seen 
at the top of a rising ground, are weather-beaten gray 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 57 

and red. At the sliore he has fish-hoiises, a great reel 
on wliich nets arc wound np, and in a cleft of the rock 
smokes a large iron kettle, wherein is brewing a decoc- 
tion of tar and rosin for water-proofing the rope-work 
of his lobster-traps. The trap itself has the appearance 
of a mammoth bird-cage. It is four feet long, two feet 
wide, and two feet high, with a semicircular section. It 
is made of slats, with wide intervals between, to afford 
the proposed victim a clear view of the baits, arranged 
on a perpendicular row of hooks within. A door opens 
in tlie circular top, through which access is had for pre- 
paring the baits and removing the contents. The trap 
is sunk to the bottom by a ballast of stones, and a billet 
of wood at the other end of the rope serves as a buoy. 
The ends are closed only with tarred-rope netting, and 
in one there is a circular opening of considerable size. 
The bait used is a cod's head, or sometimes a row of 
cunners. 

The lobsterman has perhaps one hundred and fifty 
such traps, set in eligible locations. He visits them 
every morning, and sometimes the circuit of buoys 
marked with his nan:ie is five or six miles in extent. 
He lays hold of the submerged rope, covered with a 
green, beard-like weed, lifts the trap, removes what it 
contains, and drops it again to the bottom. The occu- 
pation presents its most picturesque aspect in winter, 
when the fishing is in deep water. The lobsterman 
then, with his dory filled with a pile of the curious 
cages which he has taken np for repairs or is going to 
set in new places, ventures far out to sea, often at no 
little personal risk. Sometimes a particularly violent 
gale will take the traps with it, and wreck them in the 



58 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

breakers. One lobstermaii on tlie island of Monhegan 
lost over fifty in this way in one night. 

A mature lobster should measure, without the claws, 
from one to two feet long, and weigh complete from 
two to fifteen pounds ; but smaller sizes are so common 
that a length of ten and a half inches, without reference 
to weight, has been made a standard for certain calcula- 
tions. It is claimed that the average size, as well as the 
profits of the business, is being steadily diminished by 
the industry with which the pursuit has been lately fol- 
lowed up. The shores teem with traps, and the compe- 
tition is so fierce that whereas a lobsterman once made 
four or five dolhars a day, he now regards himself lucky 
if he make but one. Occasional prodigies in size turn 
up to astonish and delight their captors. Lobsters have 
been taken as heavy as twenty-five pounds, in a "line" 
(twenty -eight fathoms) of water. At South Saint 
George, below Rockland, hangs the claw of a lobster 
which in life weighed forty-three pounds. At Friend- 
ship, not far distant, there is authentic record of a cer- 
tain ^ohite lobster of formidable development. The 
normal color is black, or greenish-black, turning to vivid 
scarlet by boiling. The hard shell is incapable of ex- 
pansion, and, if it were not for a special provision, would 
prevent all growth. Relief is found in the periodical 
shedding of the shell. It splits in two along the back, 
and is sloughed off and replaced in time by a new one, 
formed underneath. This change takes place in many 
lobsters, though not in all, some time about the first of 
August, and, undoubtedly, one of the objects of the can- 
ning law was the protection of the "shedders;" for 
without a shell the lobster is defenceless from enemies. 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. Gl 

and is obliged to take refuge in crevices and under 
stones to avoid tlieui. By October the new panoply is 
in good order, and by December liis condition is at 
its best. 

If we may accept the view of a veteran lobsterman 
on Mount Desert, the lobster may attain to quite as 
great age as man. The first shedding of the shell, he 
asserts, occurs at live years. After that he confesses his 
inability to fix the periods. The mother is often seen 
surrounded by baby lobsters a few inches in length, who 
take refuge under her tail in case of danger, and some- 
times the little ones are found stranded in conch-shells, 
into which they have crawled near the shore. At the 
end of the third year the young are perhaps four inches 
long, but at the end of the fourth hardly more than six. 
At such a rate of progress it appears that something in 
the neighborhood of five years must elapse before they 
attain to eight or ten inches, at which size they are first 
found in a soft condition. Our lobsterraan's theory of 
longevity is based upon his observation of this slowness 
of growth. 

Fineness of organization would not seem to be the 
strong point of the lobster more than beauty of form, 
yet he moves about his chosen feeding-grounds with a 
very respectable set of endowments after all, for picking 
up a living. Ilis sense of smell is at the base of one pair 
of numerous feeler-like antenna?, and sense of hearing 
in another. His eyes are located at the ends of flexible 
peduncles, and have an extended range of observation 
in consequence, and two long, fine antenna?, endowed 
with a delicate sense of touch, meander cautiously over 
everything in his vicinity. His principal power resides 



62 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

in a great pair of anterior claws ; they have force suffi- 
cient to crack a clam. Ilis prey (clams and mussels, and 
such fish as the sculpin, flounder, and cunner) is seized 
and held fast by the sharp teeth between the thumb-and 
finger-like grasp of the larger claw, then held in the 
duller small one while he sucks away the substance at 
leisure. His locomotion is very rapid, and by prefer- 
ence backward, the cunning peduncle eyes no doubt 
having first taken the requisite bearings. Curving his 
many jointed, wide tail inward, he moves with a veloc- 
ity for which those who have only seen him in the mar- 
ket-stalls w^ould never give him credit. 

Thus equipped, the lobster approaches the trap set 
for Lis inveiglement. The dull, big eyes of the cod's 
head stare blankly out at the coming victim. The bead- 
like optics of the lobster, in this hour of cold tempta- 
tion, peer cunningly in. As to the attractiveness of the 
morsel there can be no question, and the way to reach 
and take possession of it, through the passage in the 
net-work, seems ample. With a few deft strokes he 
is within. Why does he not return by the same way ? 
Whoever can understand the defective logical processes 
of a lobster's mind can alone explain. It does not occur 
to him to turn around and go out by the way he came. 
As to going out forward, his great claws, now spread, 
would render it difficult, though the opening is in no 
way more contracted than before. Nor does the fate of 
one deter the entrance of others. When the trap is 
lifted, it will contain from one to a dozen, of all sizes, 
and with them a few "five-fingers" (starfish), and per- 
haps a blundering, large-headed sculpin, who is much 
surprised at being brought up suddenly into the light. 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. G5 

AVliethcr or no a sudden loss of appetite be occasioned 
by the discovery of his situation, tlic lobster docs not 
disturb the baits to any considerable extent. After all 
his pains lie will eat a piece hardly larger than one's 
finger, "though he remain in the trap for hours. 

^' It is a cheap-livin' iish," a lobsterman relates, with a 
confidential air of giving away the secrets of his busi- 
ness. "Nothin' is ever found inside of him. lie kin 
eat barnacles, sea-weed, mud — anything. lie kin live 
five and six months in the well of a smack, on what he 
finds there, and come out all right — unless they chawr 
each other up," he adds. " They're most always a-doin' 
that. It don't seem as though it hurt 'em no gre't, 
nuther. You find lots of 'em with their claws broke off 
in the fights, but the claws grows out ag'in jest as good. 
Some think they lose 'em off in thunder-storms, too. 
I dunno as that's so, but they're pretty considerable 
frightened anyway." 

The grip of a lobster's claw, which can crack a clam, 
is easily strong enough to take off a man's finger. There 
is a story of the death of a Maine hotel-keeper from 
such a cause. The experienced are usually cautious in 
the handling, accordingly. At Deer Island, a man re- 
ported that he was once caught while opening a trap be- 
side his boat, and held in that most painful position for 
half an hour, supporting the weight of the trap as well 
as that of his tormentor, which at last let go of its own 
accord. Another lobster-fisher, going ashore with a par- 
ticularl}^ fine specimen slung over his shoulder, stopped 
to scare with it, by way of joke, a young girl he met on 
the wa3\ Inadvertently putting back one of his hands, 
it was savagely gripped by a dangling claw ; the other 



66 FISn AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

hand, hastening to its relief, was seized also, and the 
joker tliiis exhibited to the fair object of his attentions 
in a highly uncomfortable light. She was obliged at 
last to bring assistants to break the claws with ham- 
mers and knives. 

For lobster-catching on a smaller scale, two kinds of 
nets, and a hook with a ten-foot handle not unlike a 
mackerel-gaff, are occasionally nsed. One is an ordi- 
nary dip-net, lowered by ropes and with a bait in the 
bottom. When the lobster enters, the additional weight 
is felt and the net palled up. The other is a circle of 
wire, playing in equal halves on an axis ; a rope is at- 
tached to each side, and it is lowered like the other ; by 
pulling the ropes the parts shut together, enclosing what- 
ever rests within. 

X. 

The first destination of the captives is the lobster-car. 
This is a great floating box, perhaps twelve feet long 
by eight wide, by two and a half deep, submerged to 
the water's edge. Here they are preserved till the ar- 
rival of the smack. The Portland or Boston or ^ew 
York smack comes once a week, to carry off the larger 
ones fresh in its well ; the factory smacks come for the 
smaller ones, to be canned, every day or two. The 
smack runs down to the lobster-car and luffs up along- 
side. The owner stands on its slippery surface, and 
dips out the contents, into the iron - bound scoop of a 
fine large weighing-tackle, rigged to the throat-halyards. 
The skipper keeps the tally on a shingle. The large 
bold implements, the free attitudes, the strongly charac- 
teristic dresses, offer the artist plenty of material. 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 67 

The arrival of the smack is an important event in the 
cove. The skipper brings the news of the trade and 
tlie personal gossip of his circuit, and executes many 
small commissions for tlie household. An ordinarily 
prosperous factory, as that at Green's Landing, Doer 
Island, has three such small vessels in its employ, attend- 
ing upon, perhaps, one hundred and fifty lobstermen. 
The skipper endeavors to attach to him his special gang, 
or clientele^ and to make it as large as possible. To in- 
sure that they shall fish for him and no other, he uses 
all the arts of the commercial traveller. lie makes a 
slightly more favorable price here, relies upon an exhi- 
bition of jolly good-fellowship there, and appeals to 
long- established usage and other motives elsewhere, 
lie must be able, too, to fit a man out on credit, now 
and then, with the necessary gear for the campaign. 
By every means in his power he assures him that he 
will do better with no other living skipper, and begs him 
not to forget it. His own compensation is sometimes 
a salary, but more often a commission on the amount 
brought in. His cabin is six feet by four, by a height 
sufficient to stand erect in. It has a couple of bunks, 
covered with squalid calico quilts, a rusty iron stove, and 
a table-leaf letting down from the foot of the mast. 
Here he sits casting np his accounts on the shingle 
which serves liim as a imiversal record -book, as she 
cruises in and out of the small harbors, past the reefs 
with their singular beacons, and the little light-houses 
of the minor class that guide liim on his way. 

"Do you see yonder light ?'' Middleton's skipper said, 
as he sailed near South Saint George below Hockland. 
"Well, a feller was appointed keeper there onct, from 



68 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

somewlieres back in the State. He'd never seen the 
water afore — a regular p'litical job. Well, after he'd 
been there a little while there was complaints ag'in him, 
and he was hauled up before the board. 

"'What time do you put your light out, o' nights?' 
says the board. 

" ' Nine o'clock,' says this here p'litical keeper. ' All 
decent folks is in bed by that time, or ought to be.' " 

The smack nowadays runs along-side the wharf of the 
lobster-factory. From the land side, the first seen of 
tlie skipper is a pair of brawny hands on the string- 
piece of the wharf. They are followed, as he climbs 
up the side, by his sou'-wester, his patched woollen 
roundabout, and his cowhide boots, covering his trou- 
sers to the knee. The great weighing scoop is again 
rigged, a tub, with a rope and stake handle, is lowered 
from a small crane at the corner of the wharf, the shin- 
gle is resumed, and the live freight, clutching and flap- 
ing viciously, begins to be as unceremoniously trans- 
ferred, with shovels, as though it were only coals. 



XL 

The lobster-factories are numerous, and can hardly 
escape the notice even of the fashionable visitor to 
Maine. He is confronted by one, for instance, at the 
landing of Harpswell, the principal island of Ca«co Bay, 
another at the historic old town of Castine, another at 
South-west Harbor, Mount Desert. Besides the one at 
Green's Landing, Deer Island has factories at Ocean- 
ville and Burnt Cove, forming part of a series, twenty- 
tliree in number, which belong to one firm, and stretch 




UNLOADING THP: SMACK. 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 71 

all tlic way down to the Lay of Fundy. They cannot 
be called intrinsically inviting, owing to their very utili- 
tarian character, although they are apt to have redeem- 
ing features in an occasional touch of the picturesque. 

The factory opens, at one end, on the wharf, close to 
the water. Two men bring in the squirming loads on 
a stretcher, and dump the mass into coppers for boil- 
ing. At intervals the covers are hoisted by ropes and 
pulleys, and dense clouds of steam arise, through which 
we catch vistas of men, women, and children at work. 
Two men approach the coppers with stretcher and scoop- 
nets, and they throw rapid scoopfuls, done to vivid scar- 
let, back over their shoulders. The scarlet hue is seen 
in all quarters — on the steaming stretcher, in the great 
heaps on the tables, in scattered individuals on the floor, 
in a large pile of shells and refuse seen through the 
open door, and in an ox-cart load of the same refuse, 
farther off, which is being taken away for use as a fer- 
tilizer. 

The boiled lobster is separated, on long tables, into 
his constituent parts. The meat of the many-jointed 
tail is thrust out with a punch. A functionary called a 
"cracker" frees that of the claws by a couple of deft 
cuts with a cleaver, and the connecting arms are passed 
on to be picked out with a fork by the girls. In an- 
other department the meat is placed in the cans. The 
first girl puts in roughly a suitable selection of the sev- 
eral parts. The next weighs it, and adds or subtracts 
enough to complete the exact amount desired (one or 
two pounds). The next forces down the contents with 
a stamp invented especially for the purpose. The next 
})ut3 on a tin cover with blows of a little hammer. Then 

3. 



72 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

a tray is rapidly filled with the cans, and they are car- 
ried to the solderers, who seal them tight except for 
minute openings in the covers, and put them in another 
tray, which, by means of a pulley-tackle, is then plunged 
into bath caldrons, in order that the cans may be boiled 
till the air is expelled from their contents through the 
minute openings. Then they are sealed up and are 
boiled again for several hours, when the process of cook- 
ing is complete. 

In the packing-room the cans are cleaned with acid, 
painted a thin coat of green to keep them from rusting, 
pasted with labels displaying a highly ornamental scar- 
let lobster rampant upon a blue sea, and are placed by 
the gross in pine boxes to await the arrival of the com- 
pany's vessel, which cruises regularly from factory to 
factory, collecting the product. Nine-tenths of the sup- 
ply at present goes to a foreign market. On "loaf- 
da.vs," the hands occupy themselves with making the 
neat cans which it is their ordinary business to fill. 

The solderers, each with his little sheet-iron furnace, 
bristling with tools, on the table beside him, and the 
white light of one of a long row of small windows play- 
ing over him, give a suggestion as of so many alche- 
mists. Over their heads, in a prominent place, appears 
this placard : 

" Notice ! How to Pkesekve Health : Let these 
Tools alone! ! !" 

There must be a little history of mischief-making con- 
nected herewith. Who could have interfered with the 
honest solderers' tools? Could it have been yonder 
pretty girl, certainly the belle of the lobster-shop ? She 
stands at the end of a long table, in check apron bur- 



CASCO BAY TO THE PENOBSCOT ARCHIPELAGO. 73 

dered with pink, her arms bare, her brown hair, with 
threads of auburn shining in it, hanging down her back 
in a braid. She is of the robuster sort of Yankee type, 
about which there is no suspicion of consumption. Near 
her, hy the partition, is a disused dory, a heap of coarse 
salt forming a sort of beach for it ; overhead other do- 
ries are sandwiched between tlie rafters. She is a very 
steady young girl, they say, engaged to a young man 
who sails in the company's smack. Indeed, he comes in 
presently, just arrived, in a linen duster above a suit 
of new ready-nuide clothing, and shakes hands with her 
and all liis friends and acquaintances round about. 
When she is asked if her picture may be sketched, she 
says, 

^' I don't know as it makes any odds." 

She is evidently not displeased at the proposition. 
Still it appears, by a certain nervousness in her manner, 
that it does make some " odds." She inquires how check 
^' takes," and soon after, inventing a plausible pretext, 
hurries home and returns with her nymph -like hair 
disastrously wetted, smoothed down and arranged in 
crimps. 

The solderers are paid from twelve to fifteen dollars 
a week, ordinary men from seven to ten, the girls no 
more than three and a half. Yet even at this price a 
respectable class of female labor is engaged. Some of 
the young women have taught school in their time. 
This is not so remarkable when common report has it 
that there are towns on this coast where, through the 
excessive shrewdness of rural committee-men, the wages 
of school-keeping have been reduced to two dollars a 
week. 



74 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

The minor employes are generally gathered from the 
neighborhood ; the more skilful are brought in for the 
season, and have successive engagements at different 
points. The solderers are in particularly active demand, 
owing to the extent to which the business of canning 
has extended, and seem to have in their vocation a sub- 
stantial means of livelihood. The sweet -corn season 
opens as soon as the lobster season closes, and soon after 
the first of August tlie solderers will be hurrying away 
to the country back of Portland, where corn-canning is 
an industr}^ of great magnitude. 

The corn-factories and lobster-factories are owned to 
a large extent by the same companies. One may chance 
to hear it charged that the lobster law was procured 
with special reference to this connection. 

"It ain't in the interest of the lobster, nor yet of the 
public, the law ain't," said an informant who held to 
this theory. " They say the meat is p'is'n after such 
and such a time, but the smacks keeps on catchin' of 
'em up and puttin' of 'em in ice all summer — that don't 
look much like it. The parties wants the sawderers 
down to Freeport and Gorham for cannin' the corn — 
that's how it is; and they don't want no one else a-goin' 
on with lobsterin' when they ain't at it. 

" But what was your object in knowin' ?" he broke 
off to ask, not readily conceiving a merely speculative 
interest in these matters; "was you thinkin' of startin' 
a lobster-factory yourself ?" 



I 



n. 

IN THE "WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 



Meanwhile our friend Middleton had been making 
but little personal acquaintance with the mackerel fleet, 
and the mackerel, the great staple of the coast iishery. 
He pushed on, therefore, in more direct quest of it, 
from Deer Island to Mount Desert. 

On this latter, charming, mountainous isle, which 
fashion has so greatly taken into favor of late, th^ 
greater part of the active population was found drafted 
to the service of the summer hotels. The young 
women were waitresses, netted "tatting" in the inter- 
vals of their duties, and marked for purposes of subse- 
quent imitation the toilets of the city belles. The men 
were porters, drivers, and hostlers. Still a bolder por- 
tion of the men refused to yield to the blandishments 
of these new occupations, and cured their fish and went 
about their voyages as usual. At Manchester's, at the 
mouth of the noble Somes' Sound, which stretches like 
a river of clear deep green water up among the mount- 
ains, he came upon an important establishment where 
herring were smoked. A myriad of the small fish hung 
like bronze pendants, slowly turning to gold in niv at- 
mosphere of white smoke from a smouldering fire of 
logs, which, when a door was opened upon it, looked 
like imprisoned fog. When the smoke had circulated 
thus among them for a month, and they were turned to 



78 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

the purest, most finely burnished of gold in semblance, 
they were done. 

Farther up the coast, at Otter Creek, he came upon a 
crew jnst ready to set off, in a long, sharp, white seine- 
boat, heavily loaded with barrels of water and general 
traps, so that she rode as steady as a steamer. They all 
belonged to the same place, and had been put ashore at 
the completion of their last trip. Their vessel was to lie 
to for them off the mouth of their cove on her return, 
and was now due. Middleton had a mind to join them. 
The captain would be aboard the vessel, of course ; but 
he inquired for the mate. 

*' We're all mates, and there's scarcely any cap'n," 
they replied, in jovial fashion. "The cook is best man.'^ 

They said if he would put up with what they had 
(he had previously heard that this was very good in- 
deed, and that an added cause of the decline in the 
fishing interest was the epicurean tastes of the em- 
ployes), he might go with them, and see their man- 
ner of life to his heart's content. This was as far as 
they were concerned, and they believed the captain 
w^ould make no objection. 

They had rowed, to meet the vessel, nearly to the 
Great Cranberry. It was still not yet in sight, and the 
inconvenience of getting back in case of a refusal — for 
which contingency he had brought an attendant in an 
extra dory — was strongly apparent, when an entire 
change of sentiment appeared. It was not manifest- 
ed, either, in a Chesterfieldian but in a decidedly boor- 
ish way, which Middleton hoped was not characteristic 
of the Maine islander at large. Certain new sullen 
spokesmen, who had interposed no objection before. 




»' ^ 





'/I 


1 ■ en 


a 


(f 


1''''"" 


H 




1 


3 


'!/f 


'; ' 


^ 


if ' ' 


yi 


if WrU 


?3 


1 '' 


H 


;i1|l 1 






■^ 




73 




O 




V 




>^ 




M 








C| 




a 




a 









' fV 




:!i'Ji|| 



!D:| 



|,iiiii!','ii,V"r 'iiii 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 81 

now spoke lip, and their opinion prevailed. They 
thought there loas doubt about the captain — pretty 
decided doubt. AVhether so or not, there was doubt 
about them. They were opposed to it — tliat w^as liow 
it was. They had no more room aboard than tliey 
wanted for themselves and would take no passengers. 

The hilarious ones had no opposition to offer, being 
apparently, on reflection, of the same mind. Nor had 
they any comments regretful or otherwise; and so, amid 
stolid silence, Middleton took to his skiff with his at- 
tendant, and after an hour's hard pulling was again 
upon the shore. 

From this disappointment resulted the cruise hereto- 
fore referred to. It began at South-west Harbor. The 
bold rocky coast of the island, with its caverns, its 
" ovens," its Great Head and Schooner Head, was left 
behind, and a course first made of thirty miles straight 
out to sea, to the desolate light of Mount Desert Kock, 
near which the whole mackerel fleet was credibly said 
to be lying. It was made in a hired ''jigger," manned 
by its skipper, the artist of most of the truthful pict- 
ures accompanying this account of Middleton's jour- 
neys, and himself. 

II. 

They had continual sunshine, and considerable peri- 
ods of calms, in which the most singular mirages rose 
up around them. An island below the horizon came 
and piled itself over one upon it. Low^ islands in the 
middle distance appeared to have precipitous walls a 
hundred feet high; light-houses came where none were, 
and when you looked the next moment, were gone, and 

3- 



83 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

the land with tliem. Then drifts of curious wliite foe: 
came in, not creating a chilliness in the atmosphere, but 
holding the sunshine in luminous suspension, and crys- 
tallizing on the clothing in little needle-points rather like 
fine powder, yet enveloping completely, and cutting 
off surrounding objects. The ancient compass in the 
jigger's binnacle had a way of sticking where it was, 
though her course might be altered a dozen points, and 
once the skipper, jumping excitedly to the tiller, saved 
her from dangerous reefs near Bass Head Light, to 
which the screaming of sea-fowl and the noise of surf 
close by were the first intimation of approach. 

The Rock was a bare lonely bank of granite, with no 
habitation upon it but its light, in which four men, a 
woman, and a child pass their time with such philosophy 
as they can. A luxuriant slippery sea-vv^eed draped the 
rounding ledges with the semblance of verdant grass, 
but on actually going ashore, the only vegetation was 
a little dog-weed, and fifty poor hills of potatoes, by 
actual count, distributed wherever a space for five or 
six plants together could be found among the chaotic 
mass of stones. 

They saw the sun set upon the light as on some tow- 
er of Torcello, and the moon rise, nearly full, behind 
it. And lying off it at night, with only a solitary baker 
for a consort, taking his turn on the watch in his nau- 
tical capacity towards morning, Middleton saw all the 
stars shine in their splendor, traced the unhampered 
constellations, divined mysterious things in the long 
fields of rock- weed drifting idly past, saw the fins of a 
sinister cruising shark, and heard from time to time the 
stertorous blowing of a whale in the distance. 



I 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL J'LEET. 85 



III. 

But the desired fleet, after all, was not at the Eock, and 
though they sailed twenty miles one way to the Bank 
of Comfort, and as much the other to the Isle an Haut, 
it still did not appear. It had doubled on them, it 
seemed, in the niglit, and following the schools of fish, 
had worked westward towards Matinicus and Monhe- 
gan. Upon this Middleton believed he could do no 
better than go to Monhegan also. By various detours 
and conveyances, stopping at Castine to moralize on 
the departed maritime greatness of Oakum Bay, pass- 
ing down by stage from Koekland twenty miles to Her- 
ring Gut, and from there fifteen miles by water, in the 
boat of a fisherman, of B'remen Long Island (to distin- 
guish it, in the multiplicity of Long Islands, from Friend- 
ship Long Island, its neighbor), he made his way thither. 

Monhegan is still accurately described in the words 
of Captain John Smith, who came to it on his cruise in 
the year 1614: "A round, high isle, with little Monanis 
by its side, betwixt which is a harbor where our ships 
can lie at anchor." He made a garden here, he telle, 
" on the rocky isle, in May, which grew so well it served 
for salads in June and July." 

There is a white light-house on the back of the round, 
high isle. Half way up the hill towards it, from a fringe 
of gray fish-houses at the water's edge, climbs the weath- 
er-beaten little settlement, in which all the habitations 
of the island and its whole population are concentrated.' 
The school-house is at the top of the buildings. Then 



88 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

comes a space of debris of igneous rock like the scoriae 
of a volcano, the color of ploughed ground, on Avhich 
is railed off a bare little graveyard, visible from all 
directions. 




ENTRANCE TO SOMES SOUND. 



The little harbor was speckled with small boats when 
Middleton came in, and the schooner Marthy, which 
" smacked " fresh fish regularly to Portland, and a 
freighter, going in to Herring Gut to be painted, were 
lying there at anchor. The small boats were tied to 
the tall stakes, more common as the Bay of Fundy is 
approached, with crosses on the top, which at low tide 
give the appearance of some melancholy marine grave- 
yard too. 

It is not a common kind of harbor. It is a deep 
channel between Monhegan and Menana (as Monanis is 
now called), open at the outer end, and partly closed at 
the inner by a rugged black ledge called Smutty Nose. 
On Smutty Nose is reared a tall pole, part of a disused 
apparatus for communications between the light-house 
and the keeper of the fog-whistle on Menana, which has 
the air of a jury-mast rigged as a signal of distress. In 




DOG MOUNTAIN, SOMES SOUND. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 89 

south-east gales a formidable surf drives in through the 
passage, and it is then by no means so agreeable a phice 
of anchorage. In a wild night of rain, wind, and pitcli- 
darkness of 1858, tlie whole contents of the strait, four- 
teen fishing vessels, besides the flotilla of boats, were 
piled upon Smutty Nose in a mass. 

There was a shark's forked tail nailed to the principal 
spile of the wharf, as hawks are nailed, by way of warn- 
ing, to farmers' barn-doors. The fish -houses liad a 
warm yellow lichen, such as grew also on some of the 
high cliffs of the outer shore, on the weather side. 
Over the doors of some of them, by way of decoration, 
were name-boai'ds picked up from castaway boats, as the 
" Eescue," or '-' Excalibur." The principal activity clus- 
tered around two little sand beaches, the only ones on 
the island, which would be set down, by a voyager com- 
ing to it as a new land, as quite of the ideal and provi- 
dential sort. 

The greater part of the male population, stalwart, 
rawboned men in flannel shirts, well-tanned canvas jack- 
ets, and big boots, came down to n^eet him. When they 
had gratified their curiosity about tlie new-comer, they 
went back, and threw themselves down at the top of 
the first rise of the slope, among the houses, in the non- 
chalant attitudes which were their normal condition 
when the fish were not schooling. A philosophic, beard- 
ed man from the main-land, come to pass the summer 
here, was calking his boat, drawn up on the stocks near 
by, and joined in their gossip.' Occasionally one of 
them took up a battered telescope, which always lay 
there in the grass or against the neighboring wood-pile, 
and swept the horizon for indications of fish. 



90 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



IV. 

Monhegan was the most remote and primitive of all 
the Maine islands. It had no direct connection with 
the main-land, and no post-office. Such mail as came 
to it was brought over by some casual fishing-boat from 
Herring Gut, where it had accumulated. The bearer, 
sitting on a rock or the gunwale of a boat on one of the 
little beaches, distributed their letters to the group flock- 
ing around him, from the old newspaper in which he 
had tied them up for safe-keeping. There were plenty 
of sheep, but little agriculture, no roads, nor use for any 
except to haul a little wood from the other end of the 
island in winter. In this service cows as well as the 
few oxen were put under the yoke. 

There were hollyhocks, camomile, and dahlias in some 
of the small door-yards, but these could not redeem the 
shabbiness of a growth of white-weed, knee-deep along 
all the straggling paths of the hamlet, to which no one 
had public spirit enough to take a scythe. Though but 
a mile long, the centre and eastern end of the island 
had still the most virgin and savage air. Gorges con- 
taining the whitened bones of ancient cedar-trees, with 
wet morasses barred the way. The low, thick, resinous 
groves, too, w^ere impenetrable, except for some dark 
burrows like lairs where the sheep had gone through. 
Long gray moss, like the drift of some deluge, hung 
from the branches of the spruces ; but the carpet was of 
an over-luxuriant, vivid kind, more suggestive — though 
starred with scarlet bunch-berries — of death and decay 
than even the gi'aveyard on the slope. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 93 

Had Middleton met there in his ramblings the crew 
of Captain Smith, or Dixy Bull the pirate — the same 
who once sacked Pemaquid fort with sixteen renega- 
does, and who was opposed to liard drinking, but said, 
" When others have prayers, we'll have a song or a 
story" — he thought he should liardly have been sur- 
prised. One day, thinking this, and how their doublets 
and trunk-hose and slouch hats must have had the archa- 
ism pretty well taken out of them by the severe knock- 
ing about in their voyages, and at any rate could not be 
more incongruous with the landscape now than in the 
year 1G15, out of the bushes came three highly renega- 
do-looking fellows, with their cabin-boy, marching sin- 
gle file, and carrying long staves. They were unknown 
— for this was at a. time when he had personal cogni- 
zance of everybody on the island — and they were so 
grim and weather-beaten as to their countenances, and 
so faded in their attire, marching on in unbroken si- 
lence, and disappearing again into the bushes, that had 
the leader cried, " Off with his head !'' and sworn with 
a dozen antiquated oaths that he was Dixy Bull in per- 
son, he could hardly have had a keener suspicion of it. 

Now such a suggestion of the marvellous as this 
should really be left at this point to stand as one of 
those inexplicable things that from time to time baffle 
all the researches of modern science, but it may be bet- 
ter on some accounts to say that a further inquiry into 
the movements of the mysterious renegadoes revealed 
that they were part of a schooners crew, who had come 
ashore over High Head for a stroll. 

Such landings, in an idle time on the sea, were not 
uncommon. It was in this way that a crew landed. 



94 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. ' 

one remarkable occasion, at Menana to play a game of 
ball. The skipper, in chasing the ball as they played, 
came full upon a glorious pot of money in a crevice of 
the rocks. Unwilling to divide with the rest, he con- 
cealed his discovery till all had gone off to the schoon- 
er. Taking then a trusty man, he returned to secure 
it. But, alas! he could find no trace of it now, search 
as he would. He sat down at last on the hiorh rocks of 
Menana, and cried like a child with rage and despair at 
losing this unique opening to golden fortune. Nor has 
the pot of money ever been found to this day. 

If it should be found, Middleton wished it might be 
by the plucky fellow in charge of the steam fog-whistle 
on Menana. The fingers of this man's hand were once 
so mangled in his machinery that they had to be am- 
putated. He I'an his whistle for an hour after the 
accident — till the light-keeper could ^cross over to his 
relief — sailed then, a half-day's journey in a light wind, 
to Herring Gut, took a team from there to Tennant's 
Harbor, got himself comfortably shaved while waiting 
for the surgeon, and then had the am-putation per- 
formed. 

Monhegan had a glorious open out -look, somewhat 
too rare in the other Maine islands, where impertinent 
satellites, of which the map gives little idea, are con- 
tinually cropping up to destroy the desirable effect of 
space. From an elevated point Middleton could follow 
the sea all around, and shoreward a distant blue island 
or two lay on the high-lifted horizon like clouds over 
the tops of the pines. But he liked most to lie on the 
brim of the outer cliffs, the High Heads and White 
Heads, that rose one hundred and fifty feet straight 




TlIK OVKNS, SALISBURY COVK. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 97 

from the angry breakers, and look off npon tlic wide 
ocean expanse, scattered witli sails as if with a flight of 
butterfly moths. Timid groups of sheep looked on witli 
curiosity at him from the vantage ground of neighbor- 
ing hillocks. He was often the companion here of the 
lookout, watching for the schooling of flsh in the inter- 
est of the nonchalant group on the grassy bank below. 



V. 

The fleet was here at last. lie came to know it well, 
both far and near, and the leading traits of the much- 
badgered mackerel, the object of its pursuit. The isl- 
anders flshed with the fleet, pulling out in their seine- 
boats from their island, as if it were only a steadier 
kind of schooner like the rest. It was a schooner that 
never rolled, on which they had all they made, without 
a division with shippers and underwriters, and on which 
they found at night their families and firesides. 

Middleton was impressed by the singular procession 
moving up the Atlantic coast every year, and speculated 
about it from High Head. It was a peculiarly advan- 
tageous point for observing — as if a pageant passing 
under his eye. ^'It could be made a fine decorative 
frieze of," he said, ''full of moral lessons besides. It 
could be a kind of natural-history Odyssey or Nibelun- 
gen, or a hemicycle of important submarine deeds, for 
another Delaroche. Who will celebrate the Mackerel 
on his way through life, his hopes and his fears, his 
virtues and vices, his friends and his enemies, his tri- 
umphs and disasters ?" 

The mackerel began their migration, he learned, or at 



98 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

least the first were taken by the fleet which went south 
after them, in deep water, about sixty miles below the 
capes of Delaware, early in March. They arrived on 
the Maine coast about the first of June, followed closely 
by the vessels, which were presently strung all along 
from Cape Ann to Cape Sable. Late in September 
they began to work to the southward, not schooling on 
their return, and by the middle of November hardly 
one would be found to the northward of Boston Bay. 
This, at least, was the habit of our American mackerel, 
which were looked upon as a distinct nation, with no 
afiiliation with that which comes in over the Grand 
Banks, spawns on the Magdalen Islands, and remains in 
Canadian waters all winter. They seemed to come up 
along the coast, and strike inshore all about the same 
time, and the first notice of their arrival was often their 
appearance in the weirs on the bays and inlets. 

An advance guard preceded the main body often by 
a week or ten days. A mj^sterious live seed, of which 
Middleton could only hear that it was red, excessively 
hot, like pepper, and floated in the water, was thought 
to be the mackerel's principal inducement to come into 
the bays. Passionately fond of it, when it was ripe the 
mackerel was there, though it was a most reckless dissipa- 
tion, for it was said that it was so hot that it would burn 
its way out of a fish in a few hours, and it burned the 
hands of the fisherman in dressing such as had eaten it. 

A multitude of smaller marine creatures were fond of 
the red seed also. The tiny pilot-fish, perhaps a kind of 
fugleman for the mackerel, but more likely his prey, 
like the rest, came first ; then shoals of herring, shrimp, 
squid, menhaden. The round, limpid jelly-fish called 




CLIFFS AT SCllOO.NEK HEAD, NEAR OTTER CREEK. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 101 

the sun-squall, occurring sometimes almost numerously 
enough to stop the way of a boat, sought it. Woe to 
all these ! They can snatcli but a furtive joy ; the fierce 
mackerel follows them up, devouring them as they fly. 
The only visible bits of solidity in the organism of the 
limpid sun-squall are the few red seeds, which it seems 
not even to have the pleasure of digesting. The mack- 
erel ruthlessly tears hin:i in pieces for them, and the sea 
is strewn with the remains of unhappy sun-squalls. 

"Did the matter stop here, how little deserving the 
mackerel of sympathy!" mused Middleton. "And in- 
deed, after all this, he is not one to call forth too much 
sympathy in any event; but th.e !N^emesis that pursues 
liim is terrible. The procession consists of the mackerel, 
his prey, and his enemies. Now here he is, as one might 
say, a wild young prodigal, in his laced coat of green and 
silver, pursuing every mad whim and selfish pleasure, and 
blinded by his folly to the yawning pitfalls and omens 
of danger all about him. Or he may be looked upon 
as a Belshazzar sort of person, drunk with insolent pride, 
at the very moment that the Mede and Persian are 
battering at the gate. Mene, mene, tekel^ vpharsiji ! 
Thou art weighed in the balance, O Mackerel, and 
found palatable to many tastes. The sinister shark 
is on thy track; the porpoise lunges from the right; 
dog-fish, blue-fish, black-fish, from the left; the mack- 
erel-gull swoops down from overhead. The solemn 
whale cruises in thy wake, ready to dive below a school 
of you, blow it into the air, and, though prevented by 
an unfortunate arrangement of the jaws from taking in 
the splendid gulps that might be imagined, do it very 
liberal justice. And lastly comes the great schooner of 



103 FISH AND MEN IN TUE MAINE ISLANDS. 

inexorable man, the merchant, to whom all the other 
enemies are as nothing, and snares thee in lots of live 
hundred barrels a day." 

A quaint apparent exception, and the only one, to the 
universal rule of rapine in the great procession was a 
little bird somewhat larger than a sandpiper — the sea- 
goose, so called. It sits over a mackerel school, and ac- 
companies it in its course, whether out of an amicable 
sentiment of companionship, or as a rival for the myste- 
rious peppery seed, is not quite certain. 

It could well be believed that these voracious pursu- 
ers sometimes conflicted among themselves. The dog- 
fish and sharks, ravening to get at their prey when in 
the nets, bit or tore through, and released them by the 
barrel. The sharks came up around the boats of fisher- 
men, and by frightening away the game, prevented all 
their operations. It was necessary to strike them with 
a shark-knife in a peculiar waj^, otherwise they would 
not make off and cease their annoyance. One day a 
fisherman, having no weapon handy — a heavy gun ex- 
ploding a shell in the carcass is the one most in use 
for this service — thrust an oar down the throat of a 
whale, which came up beside his boat, and broke it off, 
upon which it retreated, and left him in peace. 

To devour and be devoured was by no means a mat- 
ter confined to the mackerel and his relations. Cod, 
haddock, and hake gorged themselves on lierring and 
every smaller fish. The blue- fish chased the porgies 
with such peculiar animosity that it quite depended 
upon their choice of position whether porgies should 
even make an appearance on the coast at all or not. 
Tlw3y drove them in one day near Herring Gut in such 



W' 






;.^.t^^^v^' 







GREAT HEAD. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET 



105 



quantities that they lay aiikle-decp on the sands, and 
bad to be buried to prevent an epidemic. 

"Faugh!" said Middleton, "I have no patience with 
this. Not one spark of kindly feeling, of ordinary hu- 
man, that is to say, fish -like, consideration. It never 
seems to occur to a fish that he is not to murder his 
neighbor on the merest whim of the moment. He does 
it in a flap of his tail." And he went down to the port 
to experiment with a method of harpooning sword-fish, 
from a seat fixed up in the bowsprit of a schooner, 
which he had been promised an opportunity of trying. 



VL 



The population of the islands generally was of genu- 
ine Yankee stock, only beginning to be mixed a little 
where the quarries brought in a new element. At one 
place was a '' Portugee " of the AVestern Islands. He 
had sailed out of Gloucester, as do plenty of his country- 
men, as a gallant cook, married his captain's daughter, 
settled down on the shore, and was pronounced " a real 
good feller." There were a number of cases of insanity, 
and consumption was a definite scourge. Crimes were 
few and far between, being confined principally to a 
little thieving of fish from one another's flakes, unless 
the record were enlivened by some such bold exploit 
from without as that of a marauding negro who rifled 
the principal store at Monhegan one night, and carried 
off the entire contents in his cat-boat. He was pursued 
by a fast sloop, ran on a bar at the Isle an Ilaut, and 
there was for a time the best of reasons for expecting 
his capture. By desperate exertions, however, he got 



106 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

over the bar in time, leaving it as an impediment in the 
way of the heavier -draught sloop, made off down to 
Long Island, and then farther east, till he was inside the 
Canadian line, and secure from pursuit. 

Though the occupation of the islands is of long stand- 
ing, they have nothing more than an indefinite old cel- 
lar, or teaspoon, or Indian pipe, here and there, that 
could be construed into historic remains. On little Me- 
nana, it is true, there is a semblance of rock-cut letters 
which have been attributed to Northmen of the date of 
Thorfinn, the son of Thorold, and the Skeleton in Ar- 
mor. But there is also a doubt, and it seemed to Mid- 
dleton a shrewd one, whetlier they are not simply 
some of those markings which Nature, to whom a thou- 
sand years or so are of no consequence in tlie gratifica- 
tion of a little whim, is continually making of her own 
accord. 

The most entirely satisfactory bit of history to re- 
call was the gallant fight of the Enterprise and Boxer, 
which took place in full view of Monhegan. An old 
settler was accustomed to tell it — how the arrogant 
British Boxer came out of St. John looking for the En- 
terprise ; but the latter did not need much looking for, 
being hers, truly, to command, all the time ; how neither 
of them fired a gun till they were within half pistol-shot 
of each other; how both gallant captains were killed, 
and laid in their graves at Portland at one funeral ; how 
the Boxer had made the mistake of nailing her colors 
to the mast, and was much inconvenienced later in mak- 
ing it known that on reflection she had changed her 
mind ; and how there were in her mainmast, not count- 
ing above the cat-harpins, three eighteen -pound shot, 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 109 

eighteen large grape, and sixteen musket-balls, besides 
smaller missilery in profusion. 

Middleton heard, on the shore and in the fleet, the 
outlines of many other stories of interest ; but it seemed 
to him that the good old art of "spinning a yarn," mak- 
ing the most of all its details, with gestures, pauses, 
mysterious frowns, and appropriate inflections, had gone 
out. They were told to him in a sententious few 
words, for the most part without ornamentation. On 
shore he heard principally treasure narratives; on the 
vessels, accounts of the fogs and tempests on George's, 
where hundreds of lives have often been swept away at 
a time. The practical jokes on "greenhorns" on their 
first visit to the Banks were told. Neptune, in garments 
of rockweed, comes aboard to shave them with an old 
barrel hoop. x\nd there were feats of daring in old 
troubles with the Canadians, like that of the skipper 
who ran away under the guns of two of their cutters, 
lying flat on his stomach to steer his craft, and the other, 
who took a crew of picked men to Cape Breton, and cut 
out his forfeited schooner, and brought her back in tri- 
umph to Gloucester. 

There was particularly the ghost story of the Ilas- 
call. She broke loose from her moorino^s in a crale on 
George's, and tore into and sank the Andrew Johnson, 
with all on board. For years after, the spectres of the 
drowned men were reputed to come aboard the Ilas- 
call at midnight and go through a dumb-show of fishing 
in regular form over the side, so that no crew could be 
got in Gloucester to sail her, and she would not have 
brought sixpence in the market. 



110 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



VII. 

If a Monheganer was ill, it was a matter of thirty 
miles' sailing at least to bring a physician to attend him. 
If he died, he was borne up to the graveyard on the 
hill, on the shoulders of his associates, and at the next 
arrival of a minister from the- main a discourse was pro- 
nounced over him. To such occasions, too, were post- 
poned marriages of consideration ; but in minor cases 
the couple put off somewhat by stealth to the main, and 
kept the affair rather quiet till the knot was tied. Per- 
sons who had savings invested them by preference in 
vessel property. If they amassed any considerable sum, 
they were apt to move to the main, and embark in a 
business, in some way connected with fish, as the keep- 
ing of a market. 

The women were often out on the hill-side mending 
the great nets damaged in service. In winter they 
sometimes had knitting bees, at which they replaced 
the nets of a comrade, carried away and destroyed per- 
haps by fouling a ship's anchor. In winter, too, the 
residents coasted down the light-house hill ; flooded a 
small valley lying just by the houses, and skated and 
ran an ice-boat upon it. 

The slight government of the island (plantation in 
form, and not yet a town) was languidly administered, 
and offices were avoided, not sought. It was necessary 
to elect a treasurer (in place of one who had positively 
refused to serve), and to provide funds for the payment 
of the glossy - haired teacher, in the neatest of calico 



I 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 



113 



dresses with a frill at the throat, from a liigh school on 
the main, whose term was drawing near its close. The 
meeting was set time after time, but nobody came, not 
even the ofUcer who called it, all having regularly hur- 
ried oil to the water in pursuit of fish instead. 




LIGIIT-IIOUSE. MOXHEGAX. 



Mackerel, and mackerel only, was the object of their 
ambition. It seemed almost an object in itself, apart 
from what it would bring. In confirmation of this 
view there was an account of a case, in the good old 
times, which Monhegan not less than the world in gen- 
eral has enjoyed, when a group was assembled to divide 
profits on recent ventures amounting to upward of four- 
teen hundred dollars. Suddenly the signal for mack- 
erel was given. Careless of the business in hand, they 
caught up a few bills each at random, and put off hur- 
riedly to sea, and the children picked up afterwards more 

4 



114 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



than six hundred dollars scattered around the fish-house 
where this had taken place. 




MONHKGAN POST-OITICE. 



There were three seine - boats, owned in shares by 
their crews, as tlie custom was. No one on the island 
could be oblivious of their movements. Its whole life 
centred round them. Thej set off for tlieir first trip 
before daylight, and the voices and knockings at the 
door in the dai'kness, that summoned the men, awakened 
the settlement. At noon and eveninor the careful house- 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 117 



m^mm. 






>->-' 








..-^^~- 








'^^'1'-. 






' : .>^ 


'■/^"^^M^ 




i ; 


j^^-auw;^--' .^^B^^^-^ 






-"^^FKr M»l 


i,- 






^^^^Vw 



r^^- 



GLIMPSE OF A FORTUNE. 



wife had the old spy-glass often at her eye, and knew 
how to regulate the laying of the cloth, and the lifting 
of the cover of the boiling pot, to the dot of an i, by 
their rounding the point at the harbor mouth. But it 
was tlieir departures by day, after considerable spells of 
inaction, that were the most animated, and Middletou 
was glad to be able to share the contagion. 

The look-out had been sitting a long time on the clitf, 
as like a blasted stump in appearance as a man. Sad- 



118 FISH AND MEN ON THE MAINE ISLANDS. 

denly he jumped to liis feet, slionted, and came rnninng 
down. The heavy-booted, flannel-shirted, lounging men 
knew what it meant, and were down at the beaches and 
in their long, swift boats instantly. Each strove for 
the lead. How the boats leaped through the water 
under the strokes of the bending hickory ! 

Amos has it. No, it is William Henry. No, it is 
"Cap" Trefeathering. And Middleton is with him. 

Seven men throw their weight npon the oars, some 
standing, some sitting. The Cap, aloft on the poop, 
surveys tlie watery field, and directs the course, with a 
long steering oar, down to the slight rippled patches 
which to the experienced eye denote the schooling fish. 
The great seine, one hundred and fifty fathoms long 
and twenty -four wide, an apparently chaotic lieap of 
corks and twine, well sprinkled with salt for preserva- 
tion, is piled aft, and two veteran hands stand by to pay 
it out. A boy rows in the dory astern. 

The schools are exceedingly sliy. The art is to antici- 
pate, if possible, their direction, and meet them with 
the net. Even then they will dive directly under ir, 
and disappear. The first school is missed, the second, 
the third, the fourth. The fifth is of great promise, but 
a single gull comes and poises over it to pounce upon a 
victim. "I wish I had a gun for that fellow," says the 
Cap, but liaving none, he swings his hat and screams 
shrilly. Meanwhile the fish have gone down, and the 
heavy net must be dragged grumblingly in again with- 
out result. 

The flocks and herds look down at them from the 
clift's at first as they toss in the breakers, but, with their 
many disappointments, they are presently eight to ten 




M' 




^AlU'oo^■l^(i swuiUi-iiEiu. 



IN TIIK WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 121 

miles off shore. All the boats of the fleet are out 
around them, full of men, as if meditating some war- 
like descent on the coast. The clone! of fast yacht-like 
schooners is tackin<^ and standing off and on in evciy 




MIDNIGHT WATCH ON THE " HASCALL. 



variety of pose. Dark figures in their tops and shrouds 
look out for schools ; others fling over bait of ground 
porgies from boxes along the sides, to " toll " the fish 
for easier capture. Atnong the rest are two of the 



122 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



singular " porgy steamers " turned to mackereling. The 
veterans predict that their career will be brief, saying 
they will roll too much, and their fires be put out. 

The seas are heav3\ Amid the tossing boats, particu- 
larly those in the middle distance as they now rise on 
a gloomy wave, with all their figures notched momen- 
tarily against the sky, and now sink again from sight 
as if ingulfed, Middleton finds a hundred noble and 
gallant aspects. What an ineffable contrast is this free, 
breezy, stalwart life, to cramped and tame city shops 
and offices! 




BOATS AND STAKES. 



Yonder, again, is a promising school ; there are fifty 
barrels in it if there is a fish. Give way all ! The Fi- 
delity s boat sees it too, and so does the Watch7nan'^8^ the 
Excalihur^s, the Wild Rose's, and that of the Light of 
the Age, and all race for it. But the Cap and Middle- 
ton are there first, and have \\\Q;pas. 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 125 

Over with the net! The dory holds one end of it 
while the seine-boat rows around the school. Swash! 
swash ! go the corks, drawing a long, agreeable curve 
on the water. The two ends are brought together, and 
tlie net pursed up. " I'agged, by the great horn spoon !" 
cries an excited share-holder; and they go to dipping 
the fish out witli a scoop-net, and loading the dory as 
full as it will hold. 

There were bankers and grand -bankers among the 
seiners or in the harbor from time to time, for this was 
well out in the route of all of them. Middleton trans- 
ferred his flag from one to another as pleased him, like a 
Perry at the battle of Lake Erie. The vessels outward- 
ly, as a rule, were trim and ship-shape ; within, cleanli- 
ness or squalor depended upon the individual taste of 
the captain. Apart from an occasional ^' pink -stern," 
there was little picturesqueness in the hulls, and— since 
the American fisherman despises the picturesque econ- 
omy of tanned sails, leaving that to benighted Canadi- 
ans and French of the Bay of St. Lawrence— almost as 
little in the upper works. 

The routine of affairs on all was much the same. 
There was breakfast at four in the morning, and three 
more meals in the course of the day, regulated by the 
exigencies of the work ; besides that, a substantial lunch- 
table stood all day in the forecastle. The cook ap- 
peared, indeed, from the financial point of view, to be 
the best man, since he had a liberal salary in addition 
to a share of the catch, while the rest depended on the 
catch alone. h\ fishing, all hands often took to the 
boat, leaving only the cook aboard. When they had 
made a successful cast, they signalled the schooner with 



126 



FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. 



an oar. She ran down to tliem, and the seine was made 
fast to her side. The fish dipped out were on deck, 
where the}^ were rapidly dressed and thrown into bar- 
rels of brine, one school being disposed of before an- 
other w^as sought, owing to their quick deterioration. 

At night the island 
went early to its slum- 
bers, and only the light- 
liouse on the hill kept 
watch. It dazzled the 
eyes as one looked up, 




j^^^ 



^ > 5.(«nRT .Sil. 



STOWING SEINES FROM LAST CATCH. 



and rendered the darkness more profound. On even- 
ings of a lieavy atmosphere slow rays went round and 
round from it, separating the mist like vast knives. But 
the fleet at night, with its nnnierous lanterns (red to 
port and green to starboard), and watchmen on deck, was 
like a little floating city. There was no commodore 
and no regular organization, yet accidents from colli- 



IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 129 

sion were of rare occurrence. All laid their heads one 
way, by tacit agreement. At midnight they reversed 
this and beat back over the same course. 

The schools worked nearer the top at night, and their 
presence was betrayed by a phosphorescent "firing" in 
the Avater, so that it seemed almost like insensate folly 
that this, instead of the day, should not be the favor- 
ite fishing time. But attention to the subject showed 
that the nets iired the water too, and gave a warning 
much more than counterbalancing the advantage. The 
lesson of understanding of all the conditions of a case 
before you begin seemed rather enforced by this dis- 
covery, and also the evident intention of nature to in- 
terpose a certain degree of hardship between the prize 
and the securing of it. 

With his head full of varied wisdom and experience 
of this sort, Middleton was finally "smacked" back to 
Portland as a part of the burden of the schooner 
"J/c7/'My," and finished at the point where it had be- 
gun, his jaunt among the fish and men of the Maine 
islands. 



THE END. 



OLD MEXICO AND HER LOST PEOVINCES. 



A Journey in Mexico, Southern California, and Ari- 
zona, by way of Cuba. l]y William IIenky Bishop, 
Author of "Detinold," ''The House of a Mercliant 
Prince," &c. With numerous Illustrations chiefly 
from Sketches by the Author. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. 

Tlic primitive habits and surroundings of the people with whom ho 
came in contact are ably depicted, and here and there we eome across 
graphic bits of description of scenery, of costumes, and of customs. What 
is being done to develop the country, to open it up to civilization, to pro- 
mote its industries, to extract its minerals, is all ably related. Moreover, 
he has taken pains to gather together and compile various statistics on 
these subjects which cannot fail to be of interest to those speculators 
who cast longing and worldly eyes in the direction of Mexico. The book 
is full of capital illustrations, and, taken altogether, can be highly praised. 
—.V. F. Herald. 

It is the great merit of Mr. Bishop's book that he gives us a clear and 
distinct notion of the present condition of Mexico, and of the promise of 
its future. We rise from the reading with our traditional ideas of the 
land greatly changed, or altogether shattered, and with largely increased 
respect for its people and many of its civil institutions. We see the 
people politically, industrially, and socially, and find that they improve 
on acquaintance. — X. Y. World. 

A singularly vivid and graphic picture of our neighbor republic, not 
only in its physical features, but also in the maimers and customs of its 
inhal)itants, their occupations and industries. — Boston Globe^ 

What with his admirable and characteristic sketches, his irrepressible 
American persistency in going to all places and seeing all things, in the 
face of alleged impossibilities, his close observation, Mr. Bishop has gone 
beyond any writer we know of in getting at "the actual heart of things." 
— The Nat ion, ^.Y. 

It is out of the beaten path of tourists, and for that reason full of fresh 
interest. But the author would make a readable book wherever he should 
journey, for he has eyes for all that is worth seeing, and a pen that is 
as graphic as the pencil. The work is elaborately illustrated, and the 
reader may feel as if he made the journey himself. — N. Y. Journal of 
Commerce. 



PuBLiSHKD BY HARPER & BROTHERS, Xi.w York. 

4^ Uarpku & Bbotiif.us loill send the above work h}i mail, postage prejiaid, to 
any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



" Unprecedented in the history of the icorld." 

London Times. 

STANLEY'S CONGO, 

And the Founding of its Free State : a Story of Work and 
Exploration. By H. M. Stanley, Author of " Through 
the Dark Continent," " Coomassie and Magdala," (to. Ded- 
icated by special permission to H. M. the King of the Bel- 
gians. \Yith over One Hundred Illustrations and Maps. 
2 vols., pp. 1130. 8vo, Ornamental Cloth, $10 00. 

A record of extraordinary achievements. . . . The facts speak for them- 
selves ; and tliat Mr. Stanley should have succeeded in establishing with- 
out bloodshed a series of stations alonj^ the Conj2,o, extending to a dis- 
tance of fifteen hundred miles from its mouth, is a feat of courage, 
endurance, and management combined the lil^e of which has rarely been 
heard of.— 5^. James's Gazette, London. 

The story of the exploration will at once command the attention of 
the civilized world. ... It is written with great spirit and simplicity, 
bringing every scene and circumstance graphically before the reader. — 
N. Y. Herald. 

An important contribution to the world's history, all the more valu- 
able as being written by the man who has himself made that portion of 
history. — Graphic, London. 

The great book of the season. . . . The story of stories, the romantic 
narrative of the discovery and founding of the Congo State. — Joseph 
Hatton, in the Boston Herald. 

Thoughtful and ably Avritten volumes, which combine with the fas- 
cination of stories of travel among strange people humanitarian lessons 
fraught with good for the scattered tribes of Mvico.. — London Daily 
Chronicle. 

Mr. Stanley's work on the Congo may justly be regarded as the book 
of the season. No other volumes which have appeared within the past 
year comprise the history of so many, so important, or such varied 
achievements. — London Stayidard. 

Proves to the full as vivid, as graphic, as interesting as anything we 
have had from the pen of the most daring and intrepid explorer. The 
render will turn over its pages with delight.— Pa/^ Mall Gazette, London. 

The book is at once a romance and a masterly history of tlie most 
romantic undertaking our generation has iKnown.— London Daily Tele- 
graph. 

Sufficient in itself to have founded a great reputation.— io??f7o« Daily 
News. 

Mr. Stanley may fairly boast of having given to the world two of the 
most remarkable books of travel and adxeninve. —Athenceum, London. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

Harper & Buotijerb ^vill send the above icork hij mail, postage 2yrepnid^ to 
any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



DIET FOR THE SICK. 



By Mary F. Hendersox, Author of "Practical Cook- 
ing, and Dinner Giving." Illustrated, pp. x., 234. 
12ino, Cloth, $1 50. 

It will be found a useful and handy book in every household, and 
of service not only to the invalid -whose health is to be restored, but 
to those also who would cat wisely and avoid the evils that follow 
upon errors in the choice and preparation of food. Its recipes are 
copious and excellent, and the work generally is one to whose guid- 
ance all may trust with safety and advantage. — Boaton Gazette. 

While ]Mrs. Henderson has taken knowledge from the best sourceg, 
she has written for the comprehension of the common people, and in 
a method to win favor of the scholarly class as well. In other words, 
it is a scientific book, without its hard terms and useless chemical 
analyses, told in a most methodical and practical way, and is a thor- 
oughly good book, either for the library of the physician or for the 
home. — Ch kafjo In ter- Ocea n. 

A capital manual on the comparative values of foods, their appli- 
cation to special conditions of health and disease, and the best meth- 
ods of preparation. . . . Its tone is earnest and practical, its sugges- 
tions are the result of a wise experience, and its use cannot fail to be 
attended with decided benefit by those who need such a simple and 
sympathetic guide. — Jewish Messenger, N. Y. 

j\Irs. Henderson gives not onl}^ a large number of excellent recipes 
for invalids' food, but a great deal of sound advice on related topics. 
Every one who has the care of a sick person should possess a copy 
of this really invaluable little book. — The Examiner, N. Y. 

There was need of a complete, well-studied, scientific, and simply 
practical work on the subject of food preparation for invalids, and 
to furnish that is the task Mrs. Henderson hfis here set herself. The 
results of her labors arc in every way sat isf actor}'. Her explana- 
tions of principles are lucid, her directions for practice are explicit 
and easily followed, and her fertility of suggestion is unusually 
great. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, Ni:w York. 

CF~ IIabpkk «fc BiioTiiEES will send the above work by mail, poslafje prepaid, to 
any pari of the United Slates or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



UPON A CAST. 



A Novel. By Chaklotte Dunning, pp. 330. 16ino, 

Cloth, $1 00. 

It embodies throughout the expressions of genuine American frank- 
ness, is well conceived, well managed, and brought to a delightful 
and captivating close. — Albany Press. 

The author writes this story of American social life in an interest- 
ing manner. . . . The style of the writing is excellent, and the dia- 
logue clever. — N. T. Times. 

This story is strong in plot, and its characters are drawn with a 
firm and skilful hand. They seem like real people, and their acts 
and words, their fortunes and misadventures, are made to engage the 
reader's interest and sympathy. — Worcester Daily Spy. 

The character painting is very well done. . . . The sourest cynic 
that ever sneered at woman cannot but find the little story vastly 
entertaining. — Commercial Bulletin, Boston. 

The life of a semi-metropolitan village, with its own aristocracy, 
gossips, and various other qualities of people, is admirably por- 
trayed. . . . The book fascinates the reader from the first page to 
the last. — Boston Traveller. 

The plot has been constructed with no little skill, and the charac- 
ters — all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance— are por- 
trayed with great distinctness. The book is written in an entertain- 
ing and vivacious style, and is destined to provide entertainment for 
a large number of readers. — Christian at Work, N. Y. 

One of the best — if not the very best— of the society novels of the 
season. — Detroit Free Press. 

Of peculiar interest as regards plot, and with much grace and 
freshness of style. — BrooJdyji Times. 

The plot has been constructed witli no little skill, and the characters 
— all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance — arc portrayed 
with great distinctness. — Episcopal Recorder, Philadelphia. 

A clever and entertaining novel. It is wholly social, and the 
theatre is a small one ; but the characters are varied and are drawn 
with a firm hand ; the play of human passion and longing is well- 
defined and brilliant ; and the movement is effective and satisfac- 
tory. . . . The love story is as good as the social study, making alto- 
gether an uncommonly entertaining book for vacation reading. — 
Wilmington (Del.) Morning News. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

Harper & Bbotukes will send the above work by mail, iwstage prepaid^ to 
any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



BOOTS AND SADDLES; 

Or, Life in Dakota wilh General Custer, liy Mrs. Eliz- 
abeth B. Custer. Willi Portrait of General Custer. 
pp.312. 12mo, Cloth, ^l 50. 

A hook of adventure is interesting reading, especially wlien it is all true, 
as is the case with "Boots and Saddles." * * * She does not obtrude the 
fact that sunshine and solace ^Ycnt with her to tent and fort, but it in- 
heres in her narrative none the less, and as a consequence " these simple 
annals of our daily life," as she calls them, are never dull nor uninterest- 
ing. — Evanf/dht^ X. Y. 

Mrs. Custer's book is in reality a bright and sunny sketch of the life 
of her late husband, who fell at the battle of " Little Big Horn." * * * 
After the war, when General Custer was sent to the Indian frontier, his 
wife was of the party, and she is able to give the minute story of her 
husband's varied career, since she was almost always near the scene of 
his adventures. — Brookhin Union. 

We have no hesitation in saying that no better or more satisfactory life 
of General Custer could liave been written. Indeed, we may as well 
speak the thought that is in us, and say plainly that we know of no bio- 
graphical work anywhere which we count better than this. * * * Sujc'y the 
record of such experiences as these Avill be read with that keen interest 
which attaches only to strenuous human doings; as surely we are right 
in saying that such a story of truth and heroism as that here told will 
take a deeper hold upon the popular mind and heart than any work of 
fiction can. For the rest, the narrative is as vivacious and as lightly and 
trippingly given as that of any novel. It is enriched in every chapter wilh 
illustrative anecdotes and incidents, and here and there a little life story 
of pathetic interest is told as an episode. — X. Y. Commercial AJvertisci-. 

It is a plain, straightforward story of the author's life on the plains of 
Dakota. Every member of a "Western garrison will want to read this 
book ; every person in the East who is interested in Western life will 
want to read it, too; and every girl or boy who has a healthy appetite 
for adventure will be sure to get it. It is bound to have an army of read- 
ers that few authors can expect. — PJdladdphia Pnss. 

These annals of daily life in the army are simple, yet interesting, and 
underneath all is discerned the love of a true woman ready for any sacri- 
fice. She touches on themes little canvassed by the civilian, and makes a 
volume equally redolent of a loving devotion to an honored husband, and 
attractive as a picture of necessary duty by the soldier. — Commonwealth, 
Boston. 

Published by HARPER <fe BROTHERS, N. Y. 

fiGg" IlAErF.B & Bkothers will send the above icork by mail, pofttaje prepaid, to any 
part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



FLY-EODS AND FLY-TACKLE. 

Suggestions as to their Manufacture and Use. By Henry 
P. AVells. Illustrated, pp. 364. Post 8vo, Illumi- 
nated Cloth, $2 50. 

Mr. Weils has devoted more time and attention to the materials used in 
fly-fishing than any person we know of, and his experience is well set forth 
in this most valuable book. * * * The author is an amateur rod-maker who 
has experimented with every wood known to rod manufacturers, as well as 
with some that are not known to them, and therefore he is an undoubted 
authority on the subject. This chapter and the one following, which gives 
directions in rod-making, forms the most perfect treatise on rods extant. 
* •3fr * "j-ijg book is one of great value, and will take its place as a standard 
authority on all points of which it treats, and we cannot commend it too 
highly. — Forest and /Stream, N. Y. 

Since Izaak Walton lingered over themes piscatorial, we have learned to 
expect, in all essays on the gentle art of angling, a certain daintiness and 
elegance of literary form as well as technical utility. Publisher and author 
have co-operated to meet these traditional requirements in "Fly-Rods and 
Fly-Tackle." * * * Mr. Wells's competence to expound the somewhat in- 
tricate principles and delicate processes of fly-fishing will be plain to any 
reader who himself has some practical acquaintance with the art discussed. 
The value of the author's instructions and suggestions is signally enhanced 
by their minuteness and lucidity. — JV. Y. Sun. 

A complete manual for the ambitious lover of fishing for trout. * * * All 
lovers of fly-fishing should have Mr. Wells's book in their outfit for the 
sport that is near at hand. — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

An illustrated volume, elegantly presented, that will make all anglers 
jealous of possession until upon their shelf or centre-table. It is a book 
of suggestion as to the manufacture and use of all kinds of fishing-appa- 
ratus. — Boston Commomoealth. 

Mr. Wells reveals to us the mysteries of lines, leaders, and reels, rods, 
rod material, and rod-making. ■ lie lets us into the secret of making re- 
pairs, and gives all due directions for casting the fly. * * * Moreover, Mr. 
Wells writes in an attractive style. There is a certain charm in the heart- 
iness and grace wherewith he expresses his appreciation of those beauties 
of nature which the angler has so unlimited an opportunity of enjoying. 
Thus what may be called not only a technical, but also a scientific, knowl- 
edge of his subject is combined with a keen delight in hill, stream, and for- 
est for the sake of the varied loveliness they display. — N. Y. Telegram. 

A book of practical hints about the manufacture and use of anglers' 
gear. Fish-hooks, lines, leaders, rods and rod-making, repairs, flies and 
fly-fishing, are among the important subjects discussed with great fulness. 
The essay on "Casting the Fly" and "Miscellaneous Suggestions" are 
rich in points for beginners. It is to the latter, and not to the experts, 
that Mr. Wells modestly dedicates his work. His object is to supply pre- 
cisely the kind of information of which he stood so much in need during 
his own novitiate. — iV. Y. Journal of Commerce. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

j8®=* The above work sent bi; mail, postage prejmid, to any part of the United Statu 
or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



BOOKS ON GAMES AND SPOPiTS. 



How to Play Whist. 

With the Laws and Etiquette of Whist. Whist-Whittlings and Forty 
liilly-annotated Games. By "Five of Chibs" (Richard A. Pkoctor). 
ICmo, Paper, 25 cents. 

Lcaws and Regulations of Short Whist. 

Laws and Kegulations of Short Whist, Adopted l)y tlic Waslunr^ton 
Chib of Paris. Compiled from tlie liest Modern Autliorities, and as 
Played in the Principal Clubs of London and Paris, and in the First 
Saloons of both Capitals. With Maxims and Advice for Beginners. 
By W. Pembroke Fetuidge. 12mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 

Ames's Modern Whist. 

Modern Whist. By Fisher Ames. With the Laws of the Game. 
32rao, Paper, 20 cents; Cloth, 35 cents. 

Bartlett's New Games for Parlor and Lawn, 

New Games for Parlor and Lawn, with a few Old Friends in a New 
Dress. By George B. Bartlett. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. 

Newell's Games and Songs of American Children. 

(Jiimes and Songs of American Ciiildren. Collected and Compared by 
William Wells Newell. 8vo, Cloth, |1 50. 

Alden's Canoe and Flying Proa. 

The Canoe and the Flying Proa; or, Cheap Cruising and Safe Sailing. 
By W, L. Alden. With Illustrations. 32mo, Paper, 25 cents; Cloth, 
40 cents. 

Murphy's Sporting Adventures in the Far West. 

Sporting Adventures in the Far West. By J.M. Munriiv. Illustrated. 
12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Wells's Fly-Eods and Fly-Fishing. 

Fly-Rods and Fly-Fishing. Sujrgestions as to their Manufacture and 
Use. By Henry P. Wells. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Illuminated Cloth, 

$2 50. 

Hallock's Fishing Tourist. 

The Fishing Tourist : Angler's Guide and Reference Book. By 
Charles Hallock, Secretary of the "Blooming -Grove Park Associ- 
ation." Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $2 00. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

r^~ IIaupee & Bbothf.us u-ill send any of the above works by mail, postage pre- 
paid, to any j^art of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



HOME STUDIES IN NATURE. 

By Mary Treat, Author of " Chapters on Ants," &c. Ilhis- 
trated. pp. 244. 12mio, Ornamental Cloth, $1 50. 

Mrs. Treat roams through the fields in search of rare knowledge about 
birds, wasps, spiders, and those wonderful plants that entrap insects and 
thrive on their juices. Her originality in these researches is undoubted, 
and she adds a great deal to our stock of facts for use in the interpreta- 
tion of nature. She has a pleasant style, and a winning knack of making 
disagreeable things seem otherwise. The pictures are many and good. — 
2\\ Y. Journal of Commerce. 

A worthy tribute from a lover of nature to the animated world about 
her. It treats of birds, insects, plants that consume animals, and flowering 
plants. It has nearly seventy handsome illustrations, and the story is told 
in fascinating and clearly-expressed language. It is an admirable work 
with which to educate a family. — Boston Commonwealth. 

To those who have given attention to the beauties of nature as devel- 
oped in the winged world and the insect and floral branches, this little 
volume will be peculiarly grateful. — Albany Presti. 

Books on this subject are generally regarded by every one not profes- 
sional scientists as dreadful bores. An exception must be made, however, 
in favor of Mrs. Mary Treat's " Home Studies in Nature." The only 
echoes of science between the two covers are the Latin names of birds, 
insects, and plants ; all else arc most curious and readable accounts of 
the doings of some creatures so tiny that they frequently are near us, and 
watching us, when we imagine ourselves alone. * * * This would be a capi- 
tal book to give a bright-eyed boy or girl who complains that about home 
" there is nothing to look at." Adults, however will also enjoy the volume, 
and may make their eyesight keener by reading it. — N. Y. Herald. 

The pubhc should feel glad that occasionally a man or a woman finds 
highest pleasure in studying the ways and habits of nature, and publishing 
the result of such study to the world. This is what Mrs. Treat has done. 
* * * Her book is divided into four parts — observations on birds, habits of 
insects, plants that consume animals, and flowering plants. It is, moreover, 
helped by nearly seventy illustrations, which in a work of this character 
are of material assistance ; for the great majority of readers are unfamil- 
iar with the appearance of the birds, flowers, and insects, the habits of 
which are described. The author shows herself to be a keen, conscien- 
tious, and affectionate observer. — N. Y. Telegram. 

Mrs. Treat can always command a delightful audience ; for next to the 
pleasure of searching fields, woods, and streams for the beautiful or curi- 
ous, it is charming to hear from so close an observer so much that is^ in- 
teresting and new, especially when all is told with vivacity and genuine 
enthusiasm. * * * The volume is finely illustrated, and its contents cannot 
fail to entertain the reader, young or old, who has learned, or is learning, 
about the busy world out-of-doors. — Worcester Daily Spy. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

If^~ The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States 
or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



OATS OR WILD OATS? 



Common-scn&c for Young Men. By J. M. Buckley, LL.D. 
pp. xiv., 30G. 12mo, Cloth, 81 oO. 

It is a good book, wliieh ought to do good on a large scale. . . . Such 
passages as those lieaded Tact, Observation, Retloction, Self-command, and 
the like, may be read and re-read many times with advantage. — Brooklyn 
Union. 

A book wliich should be recommended to the consideration of every 
young man who is preparing to go into a business career or any other in 
which he may aspire to become an honorable, useful, and prosperous citi- 
zen. . . . Dr. Buckley knows the trials and the temptations to which 
young men are exposed, and his book, while written in most agreeable 
language, is full of excellent counsel, and illustrations are given by an- 
ecdotes and by examples which the author has observed or heard of in 
his own experience. Besides general advice, there are especial chapters 
relating to professional, commercial, and other occupations. So good a 
book should be widely distributed, and ii will tell on the next generation. 
— Philadelphia Bulletin. 

It is a model manual, and will be as interesting to a bright, go-ahead 
boy as a novel. — Fhiladelphia Record. 

The scheme of the book is to assist young men in the cfioice of a 
profession or life pursuit by explaining the leading principles and char- 
acteristics of different branches of business, so that the reader may see 
what his experiences are likely to be, and thus be enabled to make an 
intelligent selection among the many avenues of labor. In order to make 
his work accurate and comprehensive. Dr. Buckley has consulted mer- 
chants, lawyers, statesmen, farmers, manufacturers, men in all walks of 
life, and specialists of every desci-iption, visiting and examining their es- 
tablishments, offices, and studios. From the knowledge thus gained he 
has prepared the greater part of his book. The remainder is given to 
general advice, and contains the old maxims familiar to all young men 
from the time of Poor Richard. Success is won by good behavior, intelli- 
gence, and industry. These are the " Oats." The " Wild Oats " of lazi- 
ness, carelessness, and dissipation bring ruin, disaster, and misery. The 
work is likely to attract readers from its practical value as a compendium 
of facts relating to the various depaitments of labor rather than on ac- 
count of its moral injunctions. It cannot help being very useful to the 
clnss of young men for whom it is intended, as also to parents who have 
bovs to start out into the world. — N. Y. Times. 



Published by HARPER &, BROTHERS, New York. 

tSf IlARrEK & BuoTiiEus xcUl send the above work by mail, postage prepaid, to 
any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



AIEPJCAN POLITICAL IDEAS 



Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History. By John 
FiSKE. pp.158. 12mo, Clotli, $1 00. 

Mr. Fiske is one of the few Arnericaus who is able to exercise 
a dispassionate judgment upon questions which have been the 
cause of quarrels between parties and sections. Mr. Fiske has a 
calm way of considering our modern ideas from the standpoint 
of universal history. — X. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

We know of no treatise concerning American history which is 
likely to exercise larger or better influence in leading Americans to 
read between the lines of our country's annals. * * * The little 
book is so direct and simple in tlie manner of its presentation of 
truth, so attractive in substance, that its circulation is likely to 
be wide. Its appeal is as directly to the farmer or mechanic as 
to the philosophic student of politics or history. — iV. Y. Commercial 
Advertiser. 

There is not a line in the entire work which is not laden with 
the richest fruits of a'trained and powerful intellect. — Commercial 
Bulletin, Boston. 

When Mr. Fiske comes to discuss American history by the com- 
X^arative method, he enters a field of special and Aital interest to 
all who h^ve ever taken up this method of study. Our history, as 
the author says, when viewed in this broad and yet impartial way, 
acquires a new dignity. There is no need to say that Mr. Fiske's 
pages are worthy of the most careful study. — Brooklyn Union. 

From this point of view the consideration of the political ideas 
of this country becomes something more than a mere study of 
history; it constitutes a page of philosophy, a social study of the 
most transcendant importance. Such is the spirit with which 
Prof. Fiske handles his subject. He shows how^ our institutions 
have grown and developed from the past, how they have a firm 
basis in nature, and how they must develop in the future. The 
lectures are important reading; they are also pleasant reading, for 
the literary style of Prof. Fiske is exceptionally pure, clear, and 
graceful. — Boston Gazette. 

A volume of great interest, and illustrates very happily some of 
the fundamental ideas of American politics by setting forth their 
relations to the general history of mankind. * * * We heartily 
commend this little volume to such of our readers as desire to en- 
large their ideas and views of the political principles underlying the 
foundations of our system of government. — Christian at JVork,'H.Y. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

r^" IlARpiat & BiioTHERs wUl scud the above icork by mail, postage prepaid, to any 
part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO 
EACH OTHEK. 

By William (Juaiiam Sumner, rrofcssor of Political and So- 
cial Science in Yale College. 16mo, Clotli, CO cents. 

There is no page of tlio book that is not wciglity uith meaning. 
The argnnient that inns throngh it is like a cliain, strongly ueld- 
cd, link on to link. * * * Prof. Snnnicr gives clear, iiointcd, and 
powerful ntteraneo to nnich social and political Avisdoni. Tiio 
teaching of the l)ook is jnst of that sort which is most needed by 
the yonng America of to-day. — Boston Commonwealth. 

The conclnsions ho reaches arc substantially nnanswerable. * * * 
No more important doctrine than this can well be proclaimed, and 
onr country owes a debt of gratitude to whoever will ])roclaim 
it in the sturdy style of this book. Wo need not despair of tlio 
Kopnblic Avhile onr yonng men are fed upon such meat as this. 
Whether they adopt liis conclusions or not, they cannot fail to bo 
stimulated by his reasoning. — llie Xation,'N.Y. 

Prof. Sumner has selected a subject of great interest and impor- 
tance, and has treated it with ingenuity, penetration, and original- 
ity, and in a plain, homely, pungent, and eflective style. — BrooUijii 
Union. -^ 

His little book is full of excellent maxims of conduct formed on 
the manly principle of doing hard work and letting everybody 
liave a fair chance. * * * These eleven short chapters are undoubt- 
edly the ablest of recent contributions to matters on which much 
nnprotital)le ink is spent. — X. Y. Times. 

This volume contains a most instructive discussion of certain 
economic questions which are of living interest touching upon tlio 
duties of the State to classes or individuals embraced in it. — Boston 
Globe. 

The style is bright and racy, and the argjimcnt is allowed to lose 
none of its force by the use of technical terms. The book is sug- 
gestive, and will be found helpful to those who desire to reach cor- 
rect conclusions on subjects of practical importance. — Christian at 
Work, N. Y. 

Prof. Sunnier has enforced in very few and very simple words 
some of the most important and most neglected principles of polit- 
ical and social economy; has exposed, with temperate Itut none the 
less telling sarcasm, the most altsurd but not least popular crotchets 
of modern philanthropic enthusiasm. — Saturday Beview, London. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

4®" Uari'EK & Bi:oTiiBi:8 will send the above wark by mail, postage prepaid, to any 
part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HEMY TAYLOll. 



In Two Volumes. With Portrait. Vol. I., pp. x., 308 ; Vol. 
II., pp., viii., 288. 8vo, Cloth, $3 00. 

No English autobiography witli which we are acquainted is compar- 
able with Sir Henry Taylor's book in respect of simplicity, sincerity, and 
candor. With a modesty that is never strained or misplaced, with a 
frank recognition of his own earnest efforts to do praiseworthy things, 
and a just appraisement of the measure of success attending them, with- 
out the faintest indication of a wish to disparage the talents or the tri- 
umphs of other men, or to depict himself as greater or better than he 
w\as, the author in his green old age tells the story of a busy, useful, 
and interesting life, which has had its share of honor, and will leave be- 
liind it fruitage of a rare and sterling sort.— iV. Y. Sun. 

In the midst of so much that is necessarily inharmonious and provoca- 
tive of envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, in the avalanche of personal 
detail, it is delightful to come upon an autobiography like this of Sir 
Henry Taylor's, with its panorama of life critically yet kindly presented. 
. , . The work is thoroughly entertaining, and the entertainment is of a 
higli order. One recalls what Gladstone said of Ta3dor, that he "only 
needed ambition to make him a great man." — Bodon Evening Traveller. 

It is an exceptionally interesting, and entertaining book, as it tells 
the history of a long life spent in many useful works, and in intimate 
connection with the important Englishmen and English events of the 
past eighty years. . . . His recollections of men and his record of the 
striking events of his time are extremely readable, and the Avhole book 
may be taken as a representative autobiography of one of the literary 
men of the old school who did something beside write books. — Brooklyn 
Union. 

These two volumes are worthy to flank any of an autobiographical 
nature which have been published. Mr. Taylor knew all the literary and 
political lions of his time, and tells much that is new and entertaining 
about them. He is strong in the critical faculty, and makes many wise 
comments on his contemporaries. — K Y. Journal of Commerce. 

No other man in England, probably, or at least none who would write 
it out, possessed such an intimate personal knowledge of the conspicu- 
ous men and women of the present era. His knowledge of the literary 
world began with Southey, and embraced the very youngest poets now 
writing. With novelists, historians, scientists, he had an intimate per- 
sonal relation, visiting them in their homes and receiving them in his. 
He knew the men and women of whom the Avorld delights to hear, and 
he therefore fills many pages with interesting reminiscences. . . . The two 
volumes are certain to be widely read. — N. Y. Times. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

je®= IlAurr.K & Brothkrs ivill send the above, work by mail, postage 2)repaid, to any 
part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



CHARLES KORDHOFFS WORKS. 



POLITICS FOR YOUNG A^IERICAXS. By Charles Xordiioff. 16mo, 
Iliilf Leather, 75 cents ; Paper, 40 cents. 

It is a l)()ok that should be in the hand of every American boy and pirl, This 
book of Mr. Nordhoff's might be learned by heart. Each word lias its value; 
each enumerated section lias its pith. It is a complete eystem of political scicuce, 
ecouomical and other, as applied to our American system,— X y. Herald. 

CALIFORNIA : A Book for Travellers and Settlers. By Charles Xord- 
iioff. A Xew Edition. With Maps and Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, 
$2 00. 

Mr. Nordhoff's plan is to see what is curious, important, and true, and then to 
tell it in the simplest manner. Herodotus is evidently his i)rototype. Strong 
sense, a Doric truthrulness, and a very earnest contempt for anything like pre- 
tension or sensativinalism, and an enthusiasm none the less agreeable because 
straitened in its expression, are his qualities.— X Y. Evening Pvat. 

TUE COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED STATES; from 
Personal Visit and Observation : including Detailed Accounts of the 
Economists, Zoaritcs, Shakers ; the Amana, Oneida, Bethel, Aurora, 
Icarian, and other Existing Societies ; their Religions Creeds, Social 
Practices, Xunibers, Industries, and Present Condition. By Chaiilks 
XouDHOFF. lUustiMted. 8vo, Cloth, $4 00. 

Mr. Nordhoff has derived his materials from personal observation, havinij vis- 
ited the principal Communistic societies in the United States, and taken diligent 
note of the peculiar features of their religious creed and practices, their social and 
domestic customs, and their industrial and tlnancial arran-rements. * " * With his 
exceplionally keen i)Owers of perception, and his habits of practised observation, 
he could not engage in such an inquiry without amassing a fund of curious 
information. In stating the results of his investigations, he writes wiiii exem- 
plary candor and imiiartiality, though not without the exercise of just and sonud 
discrimination. — X. V. Tribune. 

CAPE COD AXD ALL ALOXG SHORE : STORIES. By Charles Xori>- 
HOFF. 12ino, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

Light, clever, well-written sketches.— A". V. Timest. 

A lively and agreeable volume, full of humor and incident.— fios^on Transcript. 

GOD AXD THE FUTURE LIFE. The Reasonableness of Christianity. 
By Charles Xordhoff. IGmo, Cloth, $1 00. 

Mr. Nordhoff's object is not so much to present a religious system as to give 
practical and suflicient reasons for every-day beliefs^ He writes strongly, clearly, 
aud in the vein that the people understand. — Bosf-on Herald. 



PuDLisHED BY IIARPEU & BROTIIEPtS, New York. 

t^^~ Uaupki: & Brotukus toill send the above icorka by mail, posfarje prepaid^ to any 
jmrt of the United !St ttes or Canada, on receipt of the j)n<*. 



BOOKS ON NEW ENGLAND. 



LODGE'S ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. A Short History 
of the En<;lish Colonies in America. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
8vo, Half Leather, $3 00. 

A sterling historical work.* * *His style is clear and graphic, and he paints 
pictures of the old times, attractive or repulsive, according to the truth as he tiuds 
it. — X. V. Journal of Commerce. 

BACON'S GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. 
By the Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 
Cioth, $2 50. 

After a careful perusal of Dr. Bacon's work, we can congratulate the author 
on having completed a contribution of permanent value to all students of 
American history, and especially to such as are foud of explorifiii its earlier 
period.— r/te Sation, N. Y. 

PIKE'S NEW PURITAN. New England Two Hundred Years Ago. 
Some Account of the Life of Robert Pike, the Puritan who 
Defended the Quakers, Resisted Clerical Domination, and Op- 
posed the Witchcraft Prosecution. By James S. Pike. 12mo, 
Cloth, ,$1 00. 

A most vivid and interesting portrait of the traits of his subject, and an in- 
structive view of New England as it was two hundred years ago. Robert Pike 
stands forth clearly as a Puritan of a superior sort, conservative, iudependent, and 
courageous. — Boston A dvertiser. 

DRAKE'S NOOKS AND CORNERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND 
COAST. Bv Samuel Adams Drake. With numerous Illus- 
trations. Square 8vo, Cloth, p 50 ; Half Calf, $5 75. 

"Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast" is an admirable guide both 
to the lover of the picturesque and the searcher for historic lore, as well as to 
6tay-at-home travellers.— xV. Y. Tribune. 

GIBSON'S PASTORAL DAYS ; or. Memories of a New England 

Year. By W. Hamilton Gibson. Superbly Illustrated. 4to, 

Illuminated Cloth, Gilt Edges, |7 50. {In a Box.) 

Need we say that this author-artist is a poet though he writes in prose, or that 

his text and pictures are essentially a poem of the New England year?— iV. Y. 

Evening Post. 

GIBSON'S HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS ; or, Saunterings in New 
England. By W. Hamilton Gibson. Illustrated by the 
Author. 4to, illuminated Cloth, Gilt Edges, $7 50. (In a Box.) 

If Mr. Gil)son had not made a reputation for himself as an artist he would cer- 
tainly have made a reputation for himself as a writer, his gifts in both directions 
being larger than those of any artist-writer in this country. —A'^. Y. Mail and 
Express. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

Any oj the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part qf the United 
States or Canada on receipt of the price. 



// surjyasses all its predecessors. — N. Y. Tribune. 



A Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, 
and Explanatory, p:mbracing Scientific and Other Terms, Numer- 
ous Familiar Terms, and a Copious Selection of Old English 
Words. By the Rev. James STOUMONTir. The Pronunciation 
Carefully Kevised by the Rev. P. II. Piieli-, M.A. pp. 1248. 
4to, Cloth, $6 00; Half Roan, $7 00; Sheep, $7 50. 

Also in IIari'eu's Franklin Square Library, in Twent}-- 
three Parts. 4to, Paper, 25 cents each Part. Muslin covers for 
binding supplied by the publishers on receipt of 50 cents. 

Ap rofrards thoroughness of etvmological research and breadth or modern inclusion, 
StormonUi's new dictionary surpasses all its predecessors. * * * in fact. Stornionth's 
Dictionary possesses merits so many and conspicuous that it can hardly fail to estab- 
lish itself as a standard and a favorite— A'. 1'. rn7>Mne. , ,. T • 

This may serve in great measure the purposes of an English cyclopaedia. It gives 
lucid and succinct dellnitions of the technical terms in science and art, in law and 
medicine. We have the explanation of words and phrases that puzzle most people, 
showing wonderfully comprehensive and out of the -way research. We need only add 
that the Dictionary appears in all its departments to have been brought down to meet 
the latest demands of the day. and that it is admirably printed— TYmes, London. 

A most valuable addition to the library of the scholar and of the general reader. 
It can have for the present no possible rival— Boatoji Post. 

It has the bones and sinews of the grand dictionary of the future. * * * An invalu- 
able library hook.— Ecclesiastical Gazette, London. 

A work which is certainly without a rival, all things considered, among the dic- 
tionaries of our language. The peculiarity of the work is that it is equally well adapt- 
ed to the uses of the man of business, who demands compactness and ea.se of reference, 
and to those of the most exigent scholar.— A'. Y. Cnmmercial Advertiser. 

As compared with our standard dictionaries, it is better in type, richer in its vocab- 
ulary, and happier in arrangement. Its system of grouping is admirable. * * * He 
who possesses this dictionary will enjoy and use it, and its bulk is not so great as to 
make use of it a terror.— C/n-istian Advocate, N. Y. 

A well planned and carefully e.xccuted work, which has decided merits of its own, 
and for which there is a place not filled by any of its rivals.— A'. Y. Sun. 

A work of sterling value. It has received from all quarters the highest commenda- 
tion.— Lr/Wcmn Observer, Philadelphia. _ 

A trustworthy, truly scholarly dictionary of our English langaago.-Chnstian Intel- 
ligencer, N. Y. .... 1 

The issue of Stormonth's great English dictionary is meeting with a hearty wel- 
come evervwhere. — Boston Transcript. 

A critical and accurate dictionary, the embodiment of good scholarship and the 
result of modern researches. Compression and clearness are its external evidences, 
and it offers a favorable comparison with the best dictionaries iu use, while it holds an 
unrivalled place iu bringing forth the result of modern philological criticism.— Boston 
Jom-nal. ,, , ■ 

Full, complete, and accurate, including all the latest words, and giving all their 
derivatives and correlatives. The definitions are short, but plain, the method of mak- 
ing i>ronunciation very simple, and the arrangement such as to give the best results 
in the smallest sps^ce. -~J*hiladelj)hia Inquirer. 



Published by HARPER <k BROTHERS, New York. 

• liAKPEtt & BEOxnEBS icill Send the above icork by mail, postage prepaid, to any 
part u/ the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. 



HAEPEPJ S PERI ODICALS. 

HARPER'S MAGAZINE, One Year $4 00 

HARPER'S WEEKLY, One Year 4 00 

HARPER'S BAZAR, One Year 4 00 

HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, One Year .... 2 00 
HARPER'S FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY, 

One Year, 52 Numbers 10 00 

HARPER'S HANDY SERIES, One Year, 52 Nos. . 15 00 

The Volumes of the Weekly and Bazar begin with the first Numbers 
for January, the Volumes of the Young People witli the first Number for 
November, and the Volumes of the Magazine with the Numbers for June 
and December of each 5'ear. 

Subscriptions will be commenced with the Number of each Periodical 
current at the time of receipt of order, except in cases where the sub- 
scriber otherwise directs. 

BOUND VOLUMES. 

Bound Volumes of the Magazine for three years hack, each Volume 
containing the Numbers for Six Months, will be sent by mail, postage 
prepaid, on receipt of $3 00 per Volume in Cloth, or $5 25 in Half Calf. 

Bound Volumes of the Weekly or Bazar for three years hack, each 
containing the Numbers for a year, will be sent by mail, postage 
prepaid, on receipt of $7 00 per Volume in Cloth, or $10 50 in Half 
Morocco. 

Harper's Young People for 1881, 1882, 1883, and 1884, hand- 
somely bound in Illuminated Cloth, will be sent by mail, postage 
prepaid, on receipt of $3 50 per Volume. 

ay The Bound Volume of Haepkr's Young PKOPr,K for 1S80 in out of stock, and 
will not be reprinted at present. 



ADVERTISING. 

The extent and character of the circulation of Harper's Maga- 
zine, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Bazar, and Harper's Young 
People render them advantageous mediums for advertising. A lim- 
ited number of suitable advertisements will be inserted at the follow- 
ing rates:— In the Magazine, Fourth Cover Page, $1500 00; Third 
Cover Page, or First Page of advertisement sheet, $500 00; one-half 
of such page when whole page is not taken, $300 00; one-quarter of 
such page when whole page is not taken, $150 00; an Inside Page of 
advertisement sheet, $250 00; one-half of such page, $150 00; one- 
quarter of such page, $75 00 ; smaller cards on an inside page, per 
line, $2 00: in the Weekly, Outside Page, $2 00 a line; Inside Pages, 
$1 50 a line: in the Bazar, $1 00 a line: in the Young People, 
Cover Pages, 50 cents a line. Average, eight words to a line, twelve 
lines to an inch. Cuts and display charged the same rates for space 
occupied as solid matter. Remittances should be made by Post-Office 
Money Order or Draft, to avoid chance of loss. 

Address: HARPER & BROTHERS, 

Franklin Square, New York. 



OCT -0 15ii 



